


When Brave Men Shall Stand

by otrame



Category: Criminal Minds, NCIS
Genre: Aliens, F/M, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, death!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-06-07 20:49:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 60,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6823612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otrame/pseuds/otrame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The BAU has a new profiler, one Anthony DiNozzo, who is fitting in very well as an investigator and profiler. They know he worked for NCIS before finishing his Masters and moving to the FBI, but he doesn't talk about that. Not ever.</p><p>For Jethro Gibbs at NCIS, the past two years have been miserable. The remaining members of the MCRT have watched him become even more remote and prone to anger and they blame Tony, not understanding why he left their little "family." Gibbs knows very well why Tony left. He knows it was completely his own fault, start to finish. He had tried to be angry with Tony for abandoning him, but he didn’t have it in him to be that dishonest with himself.</p><p>Now they will meet again in a time of desperation, not only for themselves, but for the whole human race. There will be little opportunity to fix what went wrong before, but for each of them the need to try becomes of overwhelming importance even though it may be too late.</p><p><b>Warning:</b> People are going to die. People you know. People you love. People <i> <b> I</b></i> love. It is a truism that the only way to win a war is to choose not to play, but sometimes you are not given that choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first draft of this story was published for the Rough Trade April 2016 challenge.
> 
> It is an AU crossover of NCIS and Criminal Minds, fused with Robert Heinlein’s _The Puppet Masters_. I’ve taken Heinlein’s basic premise of an invasion and his aliens (more or less) and inserted NCIS, etc. There are a few plot points that are adapted from original novel, but that said, most of the action is mine. Heinlein’s book was published in 1951, so 2007, the year of the fictional invasion was more than 50 years in the future. I decided that I will make this invasion begin in 2007 as well, as a tribute to the novel, even though I have had to fudge canon dates a little to make everything the way I want it. Also, though this story does not take place in “the future,” some technology in this story, including medical technology I mention, is beyond what we can actually do these days, but then so is much of the technology that Garcia and Abby use in every episode. 
> 
> The title of this story is a paraphrase of part of the 4th verse of The Star Spangled Banner, by Francis Scott Key. It’s a paraphrase because I didn’t remember the exact wording and had already started the Rough Trade challenge with the title above. I like brave men better because I don't think I like the implications of “freemen” at the time the song was written. Everything else here is AU, why not the title?
> 
> The original reads:  
> O, thus be is ever, when freemen shall stand  
> Between their lov’d homes and the war’s desolation.
> 
> That is the story I want to tell: The one about the men and women who will literally put their bodies between this invasion and the rest of the human race; and in particular the story of two men who try to find their way back together in the midst of war.
> 
> In case I haven't made it clear this story is going to get _mean_. There will be chapter warnings for particularly bad stuff, but whole story is violent both physically and emotionally.

  
  


Special thanks to my beta, [Deejaymil](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil), who rocks.  


  
  


_Were they truly intelligent? By themselves, that is? I don’t know and I don’t know how we can ever find out. … If they were not truly intelligent, I hope I never live to see us tangle with anything at all like them which is intelligent. I know who will lose. Me. You. The so-called human race._

R.A. Heinlein  
_The Puppet Masters_ (1951)

  
  
  


**Part One: Incubation Period**  
_Incubation Period: The period between exposure to a pathogenic organism and the development of the first symptoms._  


  
  
  


**Chapter Warning:** Non-graphic discussion of a murdered infant.  


  
  


**Chapter 1**  


  


_July 22, 2007_  


  
  


Erin Strauss threw the last folder on Aaron Hotchner’s desk and leaned back in the chair. She took a sip of her nearly cold coffee, making a face as she looked up and said, “Well, that all looks pretty good. Your team has become remarkably efficient.” She leaned back in her chair, looking almost pleased and added, “So it looks like we were both right.”  


Hotch suppressed the desire to sigh. It had been more than a year since the little tussle over his newest agents; first with Strauss pushing Prentiss on him and later he pushing DiNozzo on her. It turned out that both new agents had very quickly made it clear that they were assets to the team.  


Emily Prentiss was a smart, strong, hard-working, and determined woman, who was adapting well to the relatively free-form methods they used at the BAU. If he was going to be honest, he had to admit that she was probably a better fit for the team as it was now than Elle would have been.  


Thinking of Elle always hurt. He’d failed her so very badly, so busy trying to keep Gideon in one piece that he’d never noticed how much her near-fatal shooting had damaged her. She had insisted on returning to work as soon as she was physically able, and he couldn’t help but wonder how things would have been if she had taken the six months of leave her therapist had mentioned as “something to consider”.  


But leaving the past aside, he’d been surprised and very pleased at how well Prentiss was doing and he said so now. Aside from her work as a profiler and investigator, there was a solidity about her that they all, at one time or another, had been able to lean on. He was perfectly willing to admit, to almost anyone else, that she was a real asset to the team.  


He found it difficult to admit it to Strauss, not because she had been right, but because he felt like admitting she had been right gave her ammunition in their on-going battle.  


He knew he and Strauss would always be at odds because she was very much a “company” woman and she had ambitions that aimed far higher in the hierarchy of the FBI. She wanted the BAU to succeed, but on terms that those above her would find acceptable, that would make her look good to them. In contrast, Hotch hated the political part of his job and wanted the BAU to succeed because the BAU saved lives and stopped serial offenders. He was pretty sure that those goals did matter to Strauss, but only in abstract. For her, other considerations came first. Still she had backed off some since she had successfully gotten him to accept Prentiss, and she was not above taking the praise for DiNozzo's success, so he was not surprised when she said, “And Agent DiNozzo seems to have fit in well.”  


“He’s very good.” Hotch said. Tony had a knack for the intuitive leap. He listened to everything, paying particular attention to Reid, looked at the evidence, and then said things like, “We need to find out if John Smith’s mother has an alibi.” It could be annoying at times, especially when they had never had any suspicion of John Smith’s mother and anyway, it turned out that she was innocent, but checking her alibi had led them to the unsub and a successful conclusion of the case. When trouble struck he was fast and smart, his years as a cop and a field agent showing. He was even quick and efficient at getting his paperwork done, something Hotch could not say for everyone on his team. And one of his most useful attributes was the ease with which he got local law enforcement to welcome them with open arms rather than fighting their inclusion in the case.  


“He has a bit of a crush on Rossi, I think,” she said, with amusement evident in her voice.  


Hotch shook his head and allowed some of his own humor to emerge. “More like a bit of hero-worship. And there is definitely some teasing going on. I heard him tell Rossi that he always wanted to be just like him when he was a kid.”  


Strauss snorted with laughter. “Oh, I bet Dave just loves that.”  


Hotch nodded. “He started calling Tony his unacknowledged bastard son after he invited us all over for a cook-off of Italian cuisine, because it turns out Tony is a pretty good cook, too. We’ve all benefited from their rivalry.”  


She stood. “Well, I have to say you were right about him. Though you have to admit that his reputation at NCIS was…” she made a “so so” gesture with one hand.  


Hotch felt the tightness in his gut he always got when someone attacked one of his. “As I told you at the time, whatever the Director of NCIS had to say, I talked to his former superior at Major Case and he told me that Tony was the best young agent he ever worked with. And considering what Gibbs’ reputation is—”  


Strauss held up her hands, “Oh, I know all about Gibbs.” She started for the door, and then turned and said softly, “I was just concerned that your instincts might have been a little out of whack after that mess in New York, Aaron. Nobody would have blamed you if they had been.” Then she turned and walked out, closing the door gently.  


Hotch sat at his desk, staring at the closed door. _That mess in New York_ , he thought and felt a shudder run down his body. He had a moment of memory, of near flashback intensity, of standing in the street, numb, unable to hear, not understanding what had happened. He shook himself. He’d had some mild PTSD symptoms after that, but he had worked through them. They were not even close to the worst he’d had.  


He'd hardly noticed Tony at first. He had been there, usually right behind Kate, quiet, occasionally offering a comment, quick to make calls when his boss mentioned the need, but otherwise his major job had appeared to be making sure that Kate had tea, “the real thing,” as he had remarked, whenever she had stopped moving long enough for him to hand her a cup. She didn’t seem to notice.  


When he had remarked to her that the task force of NYPD and FBI seemed to be working together better than such groups usually did and congratulating her for that, she had snorted and said, “Oh, that’s not me, that’s DiNozzo. He makes them all play nice. Don’t ask me how."  


Hotch had really focused on him for the first time when he’d been about to mention that the Tarot card Death found on the body of the seventh victim did not mean what people unfamiliar with the cards thought it meant. Tony had beat him to it, saying, “Ah, but in the Tarot, Death doesn’t mean actual death. Well, not usually. It means an end, or a major change.” He looked around at the others . “And we can’t tell if it was upright or reversed. Reversed suggests that the big change that is coming is blocked. Usually by your refusal to accept that the time for change has come.” Hotch had looked sharply at him. There had been a change in the quality of his voice that had sounded odd. There was no sign of that when he continued. “I think whoever left this here doesn’t know what the card means. They took it at face value.”  


One of the cops had muttered, “Well, at least we can cross all the fortune tellers in town off our list of suspects.”  


Rossi mentioned that the DC sniper had left the exact same card and they continued the discussion, but Hotch paid more attention to Special Agent DiNozzo after that. That evening, while outlining what he wanted Garcia to be working on, he had mentioned, “If you find a spare minute, could you do me a favor and get me some information on Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo? Nothing deep. Just what is readily available. Don’t bother with it if you don’t--”  


Garcia had squealed, “Holy Momma, he’s hot.”  


“Garcia.”  


“Sorry. I was just taking a quick look now because I have a minute like you said. Okay. Been in the Bureau about 10 months. Transferred from NCIS. He was the Senior Field Agent for their Major Case team stationed in DC, had been there about 5 and a half years. Took over the squad for a few months while his boss was on medical leave and apparently did well enough, but left shortly after his boss returned. Before NCIS he was a cop in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Peoria. Graduated from Ohio State with a degree in Physical Education and a minor in Psychology. He has a Master's degree in Criminal Psychology from Howard that he completed about a year ago. He got a couple of commendations for bravery while he was in the NCIS. Oh, and did I mention that he is really, really hot?”  


Later, when he was leaving the room in the ER where Kate had died, he found DiNozzo sitting on a chair outside, elbows on his knees, hands over his face. Hotch sat down next to him and after a few minutes, DiNozzo looked up. He looked devastated. Hotch said, “I’m sorry.”  


DiNozzo nodded. “Yeah, so am I. I’ve never lost a boss before. Came close once, but…” He paused, took a deep breath and murmured, “She was a pretty good boss.”  


“Morgan told me what you did.”  


DiNozzo flinched slightly.  


“He says you told him ‘You have someone, I don’t. Let me do it.’ ” The “it” in question had been driving an ambulance full of explosives away from the hospital to the nearest empty field while Garcia struggled to keep the cell phone network down so that a terrorist couldn’t set off the bomb. “He also says he never mentioned her to you. How did you know?”  


DiNozzo shook his head, wiped his face with his hands. “I didn’t really. It was just a feeling. He just seemed like a man that was settled in his heart.” He looked at Hotch. “Word is that you and Kate were friends back in the day.”  


And it had all come crashing down on him then, and he had had to fight not to cry. Some part of him said he should be crying. For Kate and for Cooper and for all the civilians and those Secret Service agents and for all of it. But he didn’t. He sat there, breath coming in gasps, and DiNozzo sat with him, silent, but a presence that helped.  


There was a quick knock on his door and Rossi stuck his head in. “Everything go okay with Strauss?” When Hotch nodded, he added, “JJ has something weird going on up in a little town in West Virginia. Looks like we’re going to the mountains.”  
  


***

  
  


When they were all settled in the conference room, JJ said, “There have been a total of eight people who have disappeared from the town of Ashford in West Virginia in the past week, five men, two women and a baby. The population is only 3900, so people are kind of freaking out.” Pictures came up on the screen: An old man, several men in their twenties and thirties, two women in their twenties and a baby boy. JJ said, “The State Police Captain in the area called us in to help.”  


Garcia changed the picture to that of the old man. “This is the first person to go missing. Milo Carson, aged 76, was due for a doctor’s appointment on the 13th. When he didn’t show up the doctor’s nurse called the house and got no answer. He says he stopped by the house on the way home to make sure everything was okay, even though Mr. Carson has a granddaughter...” The picture changed to a strong-looking woman of about 25 with her dark hair cut short. Her smile was shy. “...who lives in the house, because the granddaughter was a volunteer firefighter and had been called out the night before. He found the doors open and no one home. There was no sign of a struggle. There has been no sign of either Carson or his granddaughter since.”  


A new picture showed two men in firefighter gear, standing near a small fire truck with big grins on their faces. “The next day it was reported that John Makepeace, the town fire chief, and William Thurgood, the owner of a gas station in town and a volunteer firefighter, were both missing.” The picture changed again, a formal photograph of a man in his early thirties and a woman about five years younger holding an infant wearing blue. “This is the town police chief Warren Anderson with his wife Michelle and their son Jeffrey. They went missing two days later on the 17th.” One more face appeared on the screen. This was a younger man, attractive, with dark hair and high cheek bones. “And this is John Williams who was reported missing by his mother yesterday. He worked part time as a town police officer and was a cashier at a grocery store. He was also a volunteer firefighter.” She put the remote down and added, “The state police guy I talked to said internet access isn’t reliable in Ashford.”  


Hotch nodded. “You better plan to come with us, then.” He saw her flash a grin at Morgan and had to force down a smile. It had been almost 18 months, but the couple still had an enthusiasm for their relationship that was just plain charming.  


JJ passed out a stack of papers to each of them. “As of now, there are no police officers left in town. Four of their volunteer firemen are gone.”  


DiNozzo said, “Everybody is either law enforcement or fire department or related to law enforcement or fire department.”  


JJ said, “Exactly. The state police have moved into the town and are investigating. They have found no indication of where the missing people are or if they are still alive. They need us.”  


Hotch stood. “They have us.”  


######    
  


The big Marine helicopter landed in a space that looked entirely too small for such an activity. Trees surrounded the clearing and a gravel road led away through more trees to a larger road. There was a state trooper vehicle and two SUVs sitting at the end of the little road with a small group of people around them. When they landed, Tony got out first and helped Garcia out. She was flushed, and her eyes sparkled. She had been hanging on to Morgan’s hand like she was hanging off of a cliff by it, but she had clearly been having a blast on her first helicopter ride. He couldn’t help but smile at her. Morgan was grinning at her too, but they both let go of each other as soon as she had her feet solidly on the ground and Tony could see them both returning to professional mode as everyone worked to get their equipment out of the copter. A man in a greenish-brown state trooper uniform beckoned them out from under the sweep of the blades. As soon as they were all clear, the noise of the engine ramped up, becoming almost deafening, and the ‘copter took off, moving away swiftly.  


“Corporal Gil West,” the trooper said, holding out his hand to Hotch. He had reddish blond hair cut military short. “I’m in charge of the investigation in Ashford. I’ve got transportation over there.”  


Hotch introduced the team and as they walked to the two SUVs, Prentiss asked, “How long will the trip to Ashford be?”  


“Shouldn’t be much more than 30-40 minutes.” He saw the team glance at each other and smiled. “This is real back country here, folks, and there is nowhere closer that a copter that size can land. We use that space for med-evac trips all the time.”  


Hotch said, “That’s fine,” and Morgan added, “Looks like lots of scenery to look at on the way.”  


“Yeah,” West said. “That I can promise you.”  


Rossi, Reid and Hotch joined West in the first SUV while DiNozzo, Prentiss, Morgan, and Garcia were with a young state trooper named Scott in the second. As they turned onto a four-lane road, Hotch asked, “Who will we be working with in Ashford? I mean other than you, of course.”  
West turned almost immediately onto a small two lane road that looked as if it could use some resurfacing. “Good question. I guess the mayor is the one in charge. I mentioned both cops that live in town are gone. Thing is, that whole town is going bonkers. At least three families have packed up and moved in with relatives somewhere else. We had a devil of a time being sure that the ones we think are missing hadn’t done the same without mentioning it to anyone.”  


Rossi said, “Is that still a possibility?”  


West shook his head. “All but two of the missing have family still there in town and they claim no one has heard from them. The other two, the Carsons, were all the family each other had left. I guess it’s possible that they just went on their own without telling anyone, but I don’t think so. Milo Carson has lived in Ashford his whole life. Gina Carson, his granddaughter, has been living with him for about ten years, after her dad took off and her mom died in a car wreck. People say she loves it here. Nobody knows any reason why she would have left. They couldn’t have been scared away. They were the first two to go missing.”  


Hotch nodded, looking out of the windows at the forest they were driving through. The road was winding up, at times steeply enough to strain the engine on the big SUV.  


The town actually looked smaller than it was. It was located in a narrow little valley, mostly on the west side of a good-sized creek. There appeared to be a single main street with a number of businesses lined up along it, but several side streets wandered up into the forest that surrounded the town and he could see a number of buildings that looked like restaurants, bars, and a fairly large grocery store. A pair of large buildings seemed to loom over the main street on the side of the mountain above the center of town. Most of the stores on main street were clearly geared for tourists but many of them appeared to be closed. The town seemed too quiet, even for a small mountain town on a warm day in July. The one or two people they saw on the street stared at them and then hurried away.  


The little caravan of SUVs with its escort of a state police car pulled into the parking lot behind a big concrete and metal building a block from the main street. The sign out front of the building had said, "Ashford Town Hall" above a smaller sign that said, "Ashford Police Department". Here on the back of the building, the sign over the single door on the back wall said, “Ashford Police Dept. No Admittance. Public Entrance at Front of Building.” There were three cars in the lot, one of which was a light blue older model Jeep with off road tires and a police light on the top. The other two were a mid-sized Mercedes sedan that had some miles on it and an old Camaro that had many, many miles on it. Two men stood near the Camaro as they pulled up. One was a medium-sized, well-built young man with a very short haircut, dressed in jeans and a blue buttoned-down collar and short sleeves. The other was a shorter, stocky man of about 45, wearing a grey suit, who was watching them pull into the lot with anxiety clear on his face. He moved forward as they began to get out of the vehicles, while the younger man crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the car, his face expressionless.  


West said, “Well, we’ve got the FBI here now, Mr. Riley,” and he introduced the team. Before they could start a conversation, Riley looked over his shoulder and beckoned to the young man, who moved toward them, a slight scowl now on his features.  


Riley said, “This is my son, Justin. He’s a Marine.” There was definite pride in his tone. “I asked him to come over because he knew Gina Carson pretty well in high school and, uh, he saw her a couple of times while he was on leave this time. They gave him some extra leave when he asked for it after she disappeared so he could help with the search, but he has to go back tomorrow, so you should talk to him now.”  


The young man nodded his head at them as he was introduced, but he did not look happy about the situation. Riley patted his arm nervously and turned back to the agents.  


“You have a place for us to work, Mayor?” Hotch asked.  


The poor man, clearly completely out of his depth, stuttered, “Uh, y… yeah. We… I figured you could use the police office. It’s pretty small but there’s…” His voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “There’s no one there right now.”  


Hotch shook his head, slowly. “We very much appreciate that, Mayor Riley, but that is a potential crime scene so we need to be somewhere else.”  


The mayor looked helplessly around, his face pinched. “Agent Hotchner, I honestly don’t know where else to put you. This is a small town and everyone is pretty close knit and there are so many missing and I…”  


West interrupted, his voice gentle, “Mr. Riley, I’ve spent time in this town. What about the dance hall at Terry’s?”  


The mayor brightened visibly. “That would work. More room there than the police station any way. Terry doesn’t set up dances this time of year. And the inn is right next door.” He turned to Hotch and attempted a smile. “We get a lot of hunters in here in the fall and some cross-country skiers going between here and Wills Falls in the winter. The rest of the time that inn is mostly empty and both of our B&Bs are just homes because pretty much all the visitors are here to camp.”  


“So there is a considerable influx of people here during the fall and winter?”  


The mayor nodded. “We nearly double our population during hunting season. The inn fills up fast. Several people rent out rooms then and we have two formal bed and breakfast places. The skiing doesn’t bring in as many and it’s a lot more sporadic. Depends a lot on weather. But, yeah, the rest of the year is pretty quiet around here, just some campers coming in to get groceries and buy equipment and such.”  


  


***

  
  
  


The “dance hall at Terry’s” was in one of the big buildings up on the hill above the main street. It was a large, rather dusty room clearly intended to be seen only at night. It had a lot of folding wooden chairs and tables lined up against the walls, which were decorated mostly with neon beer brand signs, though there were a few mountain and hunting themed pictures and a large map that looked like it might be the local area. At the far end there was a stage and some equipment on rolling carts, covered with tarps. There was a line of windows along the outside wall, but they had heavy shades on them, and not much light got in. The door they had entered came from outside, but there was a door directly across from that one with an unlit neon sign above it that said, “Terry’s.” The door was partly open and they could hear a jukebox playing a Country and Western song Hotch didn’t recognise. The mayor went quickly across and closed the door, turning to say, “I hope this will be all right, Agent Hotchner.”  


DiNozzo glanced at Hotch, received the expected nod and moved over to the mayor, putting a hand on his shoulder. “This looks perfect. You should see some of the places other people have asked us to work in.” He was moving the mayor toward the door outside, telling him that the town was beautiful and that he was lucky to be living in such a great place. As they went out the door with the mayor’s son following them, he said, “So, can you tell me what has been happening here? You know,” he made air quotes, “ ‘in your own words.’ ” and gave him a grin so disarming that even from where he was watching, Hotch could see the little man beginning to relax.  


He turned back to the room, seeing Prentiss and Morgan helping Garcia set up her equipment. Reid was examining the map hanging on the wall. He said, “Have we heard of any missing people from,” he squinted at the map “Crawford’s Crossing or Blue Valley?”  


West shook his head. “Not that I’ve heard. I can call the town police there. Both places only have a single, part-time officer. They take on more part-times in hunting season.”  


“I’m trying to remember. Have we ever had an unsub operating exclusively in such a small town?” Morgan said.  


JJ had cleared the area around a blank space of wall and had begun putting up pictures and notes on apparent dates of disappearances. “I don’t think so. We’ve had killers in small towns but never just in one small town.”  


Reid said, “In most cases, an unsub will not want too much attention brought to his immediate neighborhood, so ordinarily I would say that the one place he doesn’t live is in Ashford. But in this case…” His eyes went back to pouring over the map. “This map is somewhat deceptive. There are two towns within 8 to 10 miles of Ashford, but that is only as the crow flies. To drive between the three towns you have to cover…” He was using his fingers to measure. “It looks like 20 miles between Ashford and Blue Valley and at least 35 between Ashford and Crawford’s Crossing. The nearest town of any size is Carbonville and that is about 40 miles away, but at least 70 miles by road.” He pointed to the three little towns high up in the mountains. “These towns are remarkably isolated, considering that we are only about a hundred miles from DC.”  


“What kind of effect would that relative isolation have on an unsub?” Hotch asked. He shook his head and added, “We really don’t have a good data set for this kind of unsub working in such a tiny town.”  


“Most serial killers prefer to work either in a large urban or suburban area or over a much larger landscape,” Morgan agreed. “Here, everyone knows everyone and knows them pretty well. It’s awfully hard to hide the kinds of pathologies that lead to serial killings when you are so well known.” He glanced at West and the other trooper. “That’s why serial killers are often described as loners who kept to themselves. They don’t want to be part of a community because they are afraid that someone will notice something.”  


“Not all of them,” Reid said. He had moved over and was helping JJ put up information on the missing people. His attention appeared to be more on that than what he was saying. “Both John Wayne Gacy and Dennis Rader were actively involved in social activities and were members of social clubs. Gacy volunteered frequently at hospitals to entertain the kids in his clown costume. And Rader—”  


“Reid.” Hotch said softly. Reid’s eyes flashed to him, then to West, who was looking very uneasy, and he blushed a little, ducking his head, and went back to taping papers to the wall. Morgan went out the outside door, carrying the satellite downlink that Garcia used when there was no reliable internet access at a site. For a few minutes most were helping get Garcia’s equipment up and running while JJ and Reid completed spreading out the case on the wall.  


Prentiss finished taping cables to the bottom of the table Garcia was using, out of the way of foot traffic, and looked up. “What if he’s a hunter or a skier? Remember what the mayor said? The town nearly doubles in size in the fall and winter.”  


“But this is summer, Prentiss,” Morgan said.  


“I know, but perhaps the triggering event took place here in the past and the unsub is a visitor, not a resident. He comes here now because he knows that there are very few people here, but the people that are here are the core of the town. Look at who he has taken. The only two cops in town. The fire chief and three of the volunteer firefighters. A permanent resident of long standing. He is striking at the heart of the town, as he sees it. Both formal and informal authority figures.”  


“And the women and the baby?” Morgan asked.  


Prentiss shrugged. “One of the women is a firefighter. Michelle Anderson and the baby may be collateral damage.”  


Hotch nodded. “That makes some sense. He is using Ashford as his private hunting ground.” He stared at the pictures a while longer, then shook his head, looking uneasy.  


“I’m not sure this is a serial killer,” Reid said. ”It’s happening too fast. It’s more like a spree killing, but there are no bodies recovered. Spree killers don’t usually bother to make more than a minimum effort to hide the bodies.” He turned and looked at West. “Corporal, do you think you could get me a map of the town?”  


“Yeah, I guess. I’ll ask the mayor.”  


Reid smiled at him. “Thank you.  


West said hesitantly, “So you think they’re all dead?”  


Hotch shook his head. “No. We’re considering possibilities and we don’t know enough yet to eliminate any of those possibilities. The unsub may be killing them. He may be holding them for some reason. It’s even possible they all just decided to leave, either separately or as a group. We don’t know. We’re here to find out.” He took a deep breath and raised his voice to include them all. “Okay, I want us in groups of two with a state police officer with each group to show us around and introduce us. We have a lot of people to talk to and several homes to check out. Garcia?” She looked up from her computer. “Make sure you and Reid stay together. We have someone willing to take on cops and firefighters in this town. I don’t want him adding federal agents to his list.”

  


***

  
  
  


Hotch and Rossi were just leaving the little two bedroom house that had been the home of the Carsons when West and Morgan pulled up in one of the state police cars. The look on Morgan’s face was not good.  


“We found Jeffery Anderson,” he said. 

Hotch looked at West and saw he looked distinctly green. He sighed. “At the house?”  


Morgan nodded, glanced at West and said, “He was in his crib. Manual strangulation.”  


West said, “Jesus God, I just don’t believe…” He took a deep breath. “I checked out the house myself when the mayor called to tell me they couldn’t find Anderson or his family. I was there and I…” He wiped his face, looking as if he was about to cry. “I was just checking to see if anyone was home. I looked in the nursery, but the crib had one of those bumper pads on it and he was so tiny and I didn’t see him.” He swallowed. “When I came back the next day to search I concentrated on the downstairs and their bedroom. I didn’t go back into the baby’s room. I didn’t see him. Jesus God, he was lying there the whole time and I didn’t see him.”  


Morgan put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s alright, Corporal West. You had no idea what you were dealing with at the time and if you had found him it wouldn’t have made any difference.”  


Rossi stepped forward and took the man’s arm. “Come on over here and sit down a minute. You’ve had a horrible experience.” He moved the man to one of the chairs on the front porch of the house.  


Morgan waited until they were out of earshot and said, “One of the neighbors told us she heard the baby crying for a long time the night before they disappeared. She said she noticed because it was unusual. Michelle Anderson was described as a very attentive mother. She figured the baby had colic.”  


“You think the killer was there in the house while the baby cried?”  


Morgan shook his head, looking down at his shoes. “I think he had to be. But the thing is, Hotch, the only sign of a struggle is a blanket pulled off the bed the couple slept in, and that might have had nothing to do with what happened.”  


Hotch said, “He got control of the husband first, then acquired the wife, probably using a threat to the baby to control them both.”  


Morgan nodded. “And then he took them out, leaving the kid. The question is, if he was there to kill them, why didn’t he leave them in the house with the baby?”  


Hotch sighed. “I have no idea.”

  


***

  
  


It was late and the team sitting around the table in the middle of the dance hall looked tired. The remains of their meal, which had been provided by the inn next door, was being cleared off by an older woman and a couple of young men who looked like they were still in high school. The meal had been eaten without discussing the case. There had been too many people popping in and out, asking if there was anything needed.  


Once the door to Terry’s bar was closed again, Hotch looked around. “What do we have?”  


DiNozzo slumped back in his chair, looking unhappy. “This is a weird town, Hotch.”  


“Weird how?”  


DiNozzo shook his head. “I’ve talked to…” He picked up his notebook and glanced through it quickly, “Fourteen people. About half of them are just scared out of their minds. The other half say they are scared, but I don’t get that vibe off them. I don’t get much of any vibe off them.”  


Rossi said, “I know what you mean, Tony. I got the same feeling with some of them, but I think they are just in shock. If it was a bunch of murders it would be one thing, but right now they just have a bunch of missing neighbors. They don’t know what to think. Not knowing is scarier than knowing.” He stretched and said, “I’m going to go out for a bit of air.”  


Hotch was finishing his coffee. He said, “Stay close, Rossi.”  


The older man smiled at him with a touch of condescension. “I’ll be right outside.”  


DiNozzo looked over at him and said, “Scream if you need help, old man.”  


Rossi laughed. “Oh, I will, kiddo. I will.”  


Reid had gotten up and moved over to the map of the town he had put together with the help of several of the townspeople, spread out on another table. The locations of the houses where missing people had lived were marked. Prentiss went over and looked at it. “What is the mark there, north of town.”  


“That,” Reid said, “Is where the fire was.” Most of the others began to gather around the map.  


Hotch said, “What fire?”  


“The evening before Mr. Carlson had his doctor’s appointment, just before sundown, several people noticed a column of smoke. The fire department was called out. It was a small fire, and it only took a couple of hours to make sure it was down.”  


There was a long moment of silence while the team turned and looked at the pictures on the wall. Hotch murmured, “West mentioned that there had been a call out that night. I don’t think he mentioned it was out in the woods.”  


Reid had the look on his face that meant that somewhere in his mind pieces were starting to come together. “It was a small fire. Most people in town probably didn’t notice it. They are fairly common this time of year. Campers getting careless, lightning strikes.”  


Prentiss looked back at the fire. “But they all came home after it was out, right?”  


Hotch said, “No one knows about Gina Carlson. No one we could find saw her after the fire.”  


DiNozzo said, “Makepeace was seen the next morning walking down the street. Terry said he looked tired but he didn’t hear her when she called out a greeting. Anderson went over to talk to him about the cause of the fire that afternoon and couldn’t find him. He wasn’t seen again.”  


Morgan said, “Thurgood called in his clerk and asked him to take the gas station for the rest of the day. Said he wasn’t feeling well. His wife got home from work at 6:30 and he was gone. He wasn’t seen again as far as we know.”  


Prentiss said, “Williams’ mother says she didn’t hear him come in the night of the fire, but he was in bed the next morning. She says he was real quiet, but when she asked him what was wrong he said everything was fine, and then started talking about the time he almost drove her car into the creek when he was 14. She says he was perfectly normal until a few days later, when the Andersons disappeared but after that she only saw him on his way to bed every night. She figured he was working with the state police. Then yesterday he wasn’t in bed when she went to wake him up.”  


There was another moment of silence. DiNozzo stood up and yawned. “Well, that isn’t creepy at all.” He looked at Hotch. “We need to talk to everyone who interacted with any of them after the fire.”  


Hotch nodded. “Yes. We’ll get organized for that over breakfast. It’s late and we all need sleep.”  


It wasn’t until they had gotten their room keys from the desk clerk at the Ashford Inn next door that they remembered Rossi. DiNozzo went back to look for him while the clerk told the rest that he had not seen him. DiNozzo came back a few minutes later, looking very grim, already on the phone to the state police.  


Over the next six hours they tore the town apart. David Rossi was nowhere to be found.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Deejaymil for the beta.

**Monday, July 22, 2007**  


Jethro Gibbs sipped his coffee, standing in his usual place where he could see and hear everything going on in the bullpen without being noticed. He liked to take a look at his team before the day started, to get a feel for how they were. As usual, his Senior Field Agent was already at his computer, working through the emails that had piled up after a weekend they had actually gotten off. He watched as Caitlin Todd came in, almost bouncing to her chair. 

“Hey, Kate. You look like a woman who had a good weekend,” Mark Tyler said. 

She smirked at him and said, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Mark Tyler grinned and said, “So did you and Eric try out that place?” 

“Yeah, The Seafood Boil was fantastic. Eric says you have to tell us where to go to eat from now on.” She started her computer, looking pleased with life. It was a good look on her.

He smiled a little, thinking back to the desperately depressed person she had been about three years ago, after she had used a scalpel to cut the throat of a terrorist holding her, their ME, Doctor Donald Mallard, and and his assistant Gerald Jackson hostage down in autopsy. Gibbs had burst into the room and found her on her knees in the blood, still trying to hold the wound closed even though it was no longer bleeding, and begging Ducky to help her. Ducky had been busy with his wounded assistant, and had been trying to talk to her, telling her the man was dead. Gibbs had picked her up off the floor, forced her blood-spattered face up so he could look into her eyes and said, “Good work, Todd.” 

As she had done once before, she started swearing at him and hitting him while he held her too close to allow her to actually swing hard enough to hurt. He waited, holding her, until she started to cry. It had been her first kill, he knew, and having to do it up close and so very personal had cracked what Tony called her “ultra-capable superwoman façade”. Finding out that the man was a Mossad operative working a case had very nearly broken her. It had taken a call from the Director of Mossad in the MTAC to convince her that the man had been out of control, a rogue, and that what she had done had possibly saved many lives, to convince her that she actually had had no choice. That had started the process of recovery. She had become less confident in herself for a while, but Gibbs had watched while Tony worked on that and Kate herself had polished off the job after Tony left. 

The woman she was now was ultra-capable and very nearly a superwoman, but it was no longer a façade. 

At that moment, Ziva and McGee came in together, both looking entirely too business-like and serious to be believable, not paying much attention to what the others were talking about and not looking at each other. That, he thought, might be a problem. He was going to have to get McGee aside and warn him that Rule 12 was there for a reason. A damned good reason. He could tell him a story that would prove it, but he knew he wouldn’t, for several reasons, including the possibility that McGee would hit him if he knew what had actually happened with Tony. Rule 12 was a good rule and Gibbs needed to remind McGee of that before they had another disaster on their hands.  
Of all of the team, McGee had been the most outwardly upset about Tony’s “defection” as he called it. His anger had cooled during the past two years, but whenever Tony came up in conversation, he still had a tendency to snort and leave the room.

Ziva logged in to her computer and began on the cold case he had assigned her the Friday before. Gibbs shook his head. It was Tony who had insisted that Jenny had been right to place her on the MCRT. “Hell, Boss, if nothing else, she is an amazing distraction. Besides, nobody plays bad cop better than her. Even you can’t get that glowy-eyed ‘I will kill you with my _teeth_ ’ look that she gets.” He had chuckled and looked up into Gibbs’ eyes. “When the bad boys see that _you’re_ being the good cop, they piss themselves and talk. You’ve seen it.” Over time he had come to trust the woman, though he knew not to push her when there might be anything to do with Israel or Mossad involved with a case. She had enormous strength, but in some areas it was fragile as hell. 

He sighed. It had been nearly two years since Tony Dinozzo had resigned from NCIS and disappeared from this team and his life. Two years, and the effect he had had on the lives around him was still so easy to see. Maybe that was because Gibbs looked for it, but he didn’t think so. Tony had been partnered with Ziva when she first arrived and they had worked well together, even though they had fought, loudly and often. It had taken him a while to realize that Tony was doing it on purpose, pushing all her buttons mercilessly, just as he had been an obnoxious frat boy for Kate when she had been new, and had pranked McGee to the brink of tears. Gibbs hadn’t even been sure that he was doing it on purpose until he could see the results: Kate’s hostility to authority and men in general eased a little, becoming an asset instead of a problem; McGee had grown a spine, able to stand up straight and look even Gibbs in the eyes, even when he was disagreeing with him (still a very rare occurrence).

And Ziva? Gradually, Ziva relaxed and became more approachable, more trainable, and far more like a normal human woman than she had been when she arrived. It had made Gibbs wonder just what the hell had been done to her. He was glad that she was here, now, where the team could form a protective barrier between her and whatever ghosts still haunted her. She sometimes actually relaxed, had fun, got silly. She no longer went home to Israel every chance she got. She had even developed a genuine friendship with Kate, and it was certain that no one (except possibly Tony) could have predicted that. When Ziva had first arrived, she had been friendly to the point of flirtatious with McGee, frankly flirtatious with Tony, submissive with a touch of flirtatious to Gibbs, and coldly polite to Kate. What ever that had been about, she had gradually softened her approach to Kate and now they often went out together, usually with Abby along, for a girls-only night of bar-hopping and crushing the hopes and dreams of many, many men (and some women) inhabiting the the DC area bar scene. 

Tyler said, “Hey, Ziva, got that report on our last case finished?” 

Gibbs watched as the entire team discussed the case, suddenly remembering the way everyone had treated Mark when he had first been assigned to the MCRT. Looking back, he wondered why the man hadn’t filed a complaint. Kate had been surly. Ziva had ignored him completely. McGee had been openly hostile. Abby had been… well, Abby had been on the verge of murderous. He himself had still been reeling from the shock of Tony’s resignation just two weeks before, and had not taken Jenny forcing a new SFA on him so soon well. He snorted at himself. That had been a gigantic understatement. 

But Jenny had used some sense in choosing Mark Tyler. He had done his early years as a probationary agent under Gibbs. He was smart, fast-talking, had a real gift for getting information from witnesses, and Gibbs had never been able to intimidate him. He’d once heard Stan ask him why Gibbs didn’t scare him. 

Mark had looked at the then-current SFA with a blank stare for a moment and then said, “Stan, I grew up in the Third Ward in Houston,” and then patted him on the shoulder and walked away. 

Gibbs had nearly laughed out loud, because, though Tyler had indeed grown up in the Third Ward, he had been the son of a doctor and a lawyer and had attended a private school in one of the wealthier areas of town. He had told Gibbs that his parents had chosen to live and work in the African-American community they’d grown up in, but they had also worked hard to get him a good education and to keep him too busy to get into trouble. 

Gibbs would have kept him, but his mother had gotten cancer and Mark had transferred to the little office at the Port of Houston, and later had worked for Dwayne Pride in New Orleans. Gibbs knew he’d been there when Katrina hit and had read the reports Pride had written as well as the texts of the commendations Tyler had received. Gibbs had not been surprised. From his own experience, he knew that Tyler was a brave man. 

But he had not wanted him to replace Tony, and he had made that very clear. Tyler had simply ignored all the hostility, even when Gibbs was doing it. It had taken two events to get Gibbs to see sense. Tyler had almost miraculously been in the the right place at the right time to protect McGee from a hulking, drug dealing Marine sergeant who had used a little too much of his own product. The Marine had been too stoned to be concerned about the arrival of a tall but slender black man in the middle of the fracas. That had been a mistake.

The other event had been quieter but no less important. On that day, it had surprised Gibbs to find Tyler in Abby’s lab one afternoon about a month and a half after he had arrived, sitting on a stool, spinning it casually. Abby was working, music at bleeding-ears level, and ignoring Tyler so hard it felt like the room was encased in ice. Gibbs had stopped and waited, wondering how long this had been going on. Finally, Abby had turned off her music and turned to Tyler, her eyes nearly glowing, her hands on her hips, and demanded, “What the hell do you want?”

Tyler had said, quietly, “No, that is my question.”

She had blinked at him. “What?”

He had said, “That is my question, Ms. Sciuto. What the hell do _you_ want?

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared even more fiercely at him, nearly shouting. “I want Tony back.”

He had nodded, his voice gentle. “Yeah, I get that. And you know what? If I could get him back here, I think I would, even though I really like DC and working for Gibbs again is kind of a dream for me.” He held up his hands when she started to speak. “But I can’t do that, Ms. Sciuto and I am sure you know that. I am sorry his leaving hurt you so badly. I’m sorry his leaving hurt all of you so much. It sucks.” He stood and was looking down at her, his expression serious. “So, like I said, what do you want? What do you want, specifically, from me? I promise, whatever it is, I will try to do it for you.” 

Abby had opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again and then snapped it shut. She looked suddenly as if she was going to cry. Then she seemed to get hold of herself. She took a deep breath and said, “Right now I want you to get out of my lab so I can concentrate.” Her tone of voice made the statement a lot less hostile than anything she had said to him since his arrival at the Navy Yard.

He had bowed slightly, smiled blindingly at her, and said, “Now, you see? That is something I can do for you.” And he’d walked out of the lab, hands in his pockets, smiling. When he saw Gibbs, he’d winked at him and continued on to the stairs. 

Gibbs had gone in and placed a Caf-Pow on the lab table and turned to Abby. She was chewing her bottom lip pretty hard. Finally she said, “We’re not being fair to him, are we? I mean. It’s not his fault Tony quit.”

“No” Gibbs had said. “It’s not.” 

Her eyes came up and she stared at him. “We need to stop taking it out on him, Gibbs. It’s not fair.” 

He’d taken her shoulders in his hands and kissed her cheek. “You’re right, Abs. It isn’t fair.”

It wasn’t fixed overnight, but it had gradually gotten fixed. Mark Tyler was smart, tough, he worked his ass off, and he had turned out to be a good SFA, as much as Gibbs hated to admit that. Now he watched them, his team, pleased with them. It was hard to accept that losing Tony had resulted in a team at least as good as the one Tony had left. One way or another, they had all adapted to the change, adapted to Tyler’s leadership style. And it had been necessary for Tyler to be a leader, because of Gibbs’ retreat from them. He was distant now, letting Tyler do the date-to-day assignments within a case. His team had struggled with that at first, but gradually they accepted this new status quo and had settled into becoming a force to be reckoned with.

Only Gibbs himself seemed to still be hurting. And he still hurt badly. Only the job had proven important enough that he could force down the memories and the guilt enough to function. And there had been times, especially at first, when he had honestly not been functional. Looking back, he saw the way his team, even Tyler, had had his six in those early weeks. They were a good team. Good people. But he couldn’t allow himself to get too close to any of them. Not again. He couldn’t bear to lose another because of his stupidity and lack of foresight. He couldn’t allow that again. 

Still, he wasn’t all stressed about it anymore. He felt that as long as he kept his distance, that everything was as it should be. He could allow himself to remember Tony a little these days without the need to push his fist through a wall. He knew where Tony was, but he never considered calling him. Gibbs had done enough damage to Tony and to himself. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he walked fully into the bullpen, listening to the dispatcher. When the call was over he looked up at his team and said, “Gear up. McGee, get your extra strength Dramamine. We’re going for a helicopter ride.”

They all moved quickly, collecting crime scene kits and weapons. Tyler said, “Where are we going, Boss?”

Gibbs unlocked the drawer he kept his Sig in and said, “Dead Marine up in the mountains in West Virginia.”  
  


* * *

  
At first, it seemed like a simple enough case. A young man wearing Marine dog tags that identified him as LCpl J. W. Riley, gets into some sort of accident up in the mountains of West Virginia and though there was little damage to his car, he was found dead nearby. Road rage? Most likely, but possibly it was just an example of why you should always wear a seat belt. Either way, not complicated.

At first, Mark Tyler had been more interested in getting the hell out from under all these trees than in the case. He was not an outdoorsy type and these were not nice, planted-in-a-park, carefully tended, types of trees. They all looked old, vaguely hostile, and had a lot of damage. Branches were lying around on the ground hiding along with a bunch of huge rocks in the underbrush that included something with some nasty thorns on it, so that he was tripping about every third step. He was willing, in fact eager, to tell anyone who would listen that the wilderness through which this little road ran was not his cup of tea. The wind was making the evergreens surrounding them sway and roar and he, for one, would like to get back to civilization. Now.

But this case… There was something wrong here. He stood about 150 meters above the scene, staring down the hill, letting his eyes roam over the fresh tire marks, the place where tires had been pushed across the road about 6 inches, where skids and the remains of a heavy foot on the brakes pointed down to where a fifteen-year-old red Camaro was parked on the side of the road, blue paint rubbed off into the red paint in places along the passenger side. The location of the scratches and paint told him the other vehicle was a truck. The placement and shape of the skid marks showed that the Camaro had apparently sideswiped the truck while both were going downhill, the Camaro apparently in the process of passing the truck. The paint was going to give them make and model once Abby got hold of it. On the surface it seemed fairly straightforward and he deeply resented that his instincts were telling him that something was wrong; that the apparent accident was not as simple as it looked. He sighed and took three more pictures before he started back down the road. 

Tim McGee was carefully packing the bits of the Camaro that had been knocked off in the encounter with the blue truck into the evidence box. He looked up as Mark arrived at the back of their rented SUV and asked, “Anything else from up there?”

Mark shook his head and put the camera back in the case. “Are you done, McGee? I want to get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps. I mean, look at this road. It is paved, I suppose, if you want to call it that, but we’ve been here for four hours and we’ve seen, what, 5 cars go by?“  
Tim smirked at him. “Not everybody was born in a city, Tyler.”

“I don’t care where they were born. You can’t control that. But Lord in Heaven, why would anyone want to actually live here? Or worse, why would you come here you don’t have to?” 

Tim glanced around. He actually thought the place was kind of beautiful. He loved the smell of the pines baking in the hot July sun. A little further down the valley from where they were the pines were mixed with deciduous trees. The sound of the wind pushing through them was kind of exciting, almost scary sometimes. Above them a mountain seemed to jump into the sky, although it didn’t have the sharp tips like the mountains in California and Montana he was more familiar with. The tree line was almost at the top. Then he noticed that the sun was about to drop behind it and turned back to his work. “ I suppose we could send out a memo asking Marines not to die in suspicious circumstances out in the middle of the mountains in the future.” 

While Tim transferred the provenience information from the next evidence bag to the evidence log, Mark looked over to where Kate was lifting a cast from the ground. Ziva was coming from there, carrying casts. Ziva handed the casts to Tim. “There are two more coming, McGee.” 

Mark snorted as he saw the dirty look Tim gave Ziva. “You’ve heard the expression shit rolls down hill, McGee. Boring jobs roll down hill too. You should be thankful that we don’t use plaster any more.” And he moved away quickly before Tim could respond. 

“Tyler!” 

Mark looked up the road to where Gibbs and a small group of state troopers were gathered. Gibbs was scowling at the thermos mug in his hand with a look that suggested that the coffee that had been in it an hour ago had committed desertion and treason by not being there anymore. Not good, Tyler thought. Another thing he didn’t like about this place. Nowhere to get coffee. He yelled, “On the way, Boss,” and started up the hill. 

Gibbs finished glaring at his empty cup as Tyler ducked under the crime scene tape, and said, “This is Special Agent Mark Tyler,” and waved his hand at the uniformed group. While the state cops introduced themselves, Mark could see the boss staring downhill at the scene.

“We’re nearly done here, Boss,” he said.

“Anything worth noting?”

“Umm. Yeah. It really doesn’t look like our marine died as a result of that crash.”

“Ya think,Tyler?”

Mark glanced down the hill at the Camaro. He said, “Yeah, there probably wasn’t much damage to the truck he sideswiped. From the tire marks up there it looks like he was passing and then for some reason swerved into the truck. Both vehicles pulled up okay. The truck was about 15 meters further down hill. The footprints are interesting.”

One of the troopers said, “Can’t be much left of any footprints. It rained last night.”

Mark smiled, “Ah, but it only sprinkled here. The footprints are still there. Not good enough to cast, Boss, but I got a couple of good photos and drew them on my map. Looks like there was a bit of a scuffle around where the body was found. Locals tromped all over it, but fortunately they didn’t leave the same way the suspect left, so we got some good imprints. I’ll send Abby the pics and see what she can do with them.” 

Gibbs grunted. “So you think Riley caused the accident?”

“It looks like it. We’ll need to see if anyone comes forward and claims to have seen it. But it looks like he was passing the truck and sideswiped it. When they got stopped the person in the truck walked back to the Camero. Looks like work boots of some kind. Riley got out and walked over to the area there where he was found. There was a bit of a struggle, and somebody ended up on the ground not far from the body. The measurements we have look pretty much the same as the place where the body was, so it might have been Riley. The truck driver left the scene. It looks like he was staggering a bit on his way back to the truck.” He met Gibbs’ eyes. “That’s about all we are going to get here.”

Gibbs nodded, then he pulled his cell and pushed one of his speed dials. When he was answered, he said, “Ducky, what can you tell me about our marine?” He listened, his scowl getting darker as the Medical Examiner talked. Finally he said, “Okay, Duck. We’ll be there soon. About to pack up here.” He closed his phone and then looked at Tyler. “Did you walk the road side?”

“Yeah, Boss. Two hundred meters both ways on both sides. Nothing that looks like it has been lying there for less than a month. No recent tire tracks on the sides. No other tire marks. Sent Ziva 50 meters into the woods around the crime scene and I did the woods across the road. Nothing.”  
Gibbs turned to the locals and said, “You’ll need to keep someone here until we can get it picked up.”

“You’re taking it? It’s just an old junker. Not going to tell you much.” 

Mark said, “It won’t tell you much and it sure won’t tell me much, but we’ve got people it will tell all it’s little secrets to, I promise.” He was ignoring Gibbs’ scowl. He did that a lot.

The oldest trooper said, “Yeah, Jenkins, these are the feds we got here. They’ll take that car apart and find out just what he had for breakfast and just how much pot he was smoking and charge the taxpayers a couple of million to do it, and it won’t make a bit of difference in the long run.”

Mark just grinned at him as if he had said something friendly and amusing. Gibbs growled, ”Go get packed up, Tyler. Ducky has some information for us.”  
  


***

  
  
Ducky looked up as Gibbs and Tyler walked into the room. “Ah, Jethro. I’m afraid I am going to have to have this poor young man shipped to my facility in the Navy Yard. This is a very small hospital and they do not have the equipment I need.” He glanced over at the short and rather rotund man standing next to him and said, “I beg your pardon, Dr. James. This is the Senior Supervisory Special Agent in charge of the Major Case Response Team at NCIS, Jethro Gibbs, and his Senior Field Agent, Mark Tyler.” He stopped a moment to puff. “My that is a mouthful. It must make introductions tedious for you, Jethro.” He paused at Gibbs’ little smile and returned it ruefully while the three men shook hands. “Of course, Dr. James, I do not intend any disparagement of your facility here. It is not intended for autopsies. Especially for autopsies that require explanation of the rather bizarre characteristics we have found on this body.”

While Dr. James was assuring Ducky that he had not taken offense, Gibbs took a look at the young man on the table in the tiny morgue. There was nothing bizarre that he could see. The boy looked like almost any dead marine he had ever seen. Entirely too young to start with. Neither handsome nor ugly. The hair was fractionally longer than it should have been and he had a 2 day growth of beard. There was the remains of a 4 or 5 day old bruise on his left temple that had probably been a fairly heavy blow. There were a number of small cuts and scratches on his torso and even more on his legs. He felt Tyler move up behind him.

“Abby just confirmed the fingerprints and sent me his jacket.” He was flipping through screens on his tablet. “He’s Justin Walker Riley, 24 years old last month. He’s been in the Marines almost 4 years. Lance Corporal. Two tours in Iraq, but the second one ended after 6 months because he got some shrapnel in his side that caused a bad infection. Nothing but trivial stuff in the no-no department. Late into barracks a couple of times, that sort of thing. He’s been taking courses throughout his time in the Marines and looks like he was probably going to make Corporal in a few months. His fitness reports are good without being glowing.” Tyler looked over at the dead body. “He was apparently your average guy doing reasonably well in the Marines until 5 days ago, when he was reported AWOL. He was supposed to be back at Quantico from a two week leave on the 17th.”  
“Do they say where he was going for his leave?”

“No. I’ll call his CO when we get through here.”

Ducky had moved to the body and was pushing it up onto its side a little, with the help of the the other doctor. “Ah, yes, I noticed the scarring.” The skin around two small deep-looking ragged scars and two much bigger surgical-looking scars was discolored in an area about the size of a hand. Ducky palpated it. “I had wondered what had caused this. The scarring from the actual shrapnel is minor, but they had to lance an abscess here at least twice. That is very unusual for such a minor wound when we have antibiotics. I wonder…” He looked up at the young man. “I suppose it was biological, wasn’t it? I do hope it was just some wood or other plant material and not part of one of your companions.”

Gibbs grimaced. He’d seen what could happen to someone who caught shrapnel that was parts of some other person. 

Tyler was looking confused. “You mean like…”

“I mean, young man,” Ducky said, rather mournfully, “That when a human body is close to a large explosion some of the shrapnel that erupts from the explosion consists of parts of the human in question. That shrapnel can be even more deadly than the metal kind. Such wounds almost always get infected, even in this day and age. It was a death sentence before penicillin.” He was continuing to move the body, turning it over. “In fact, much of the loss of life in sea battles in the days of wooden ships was caused by wounds from splinters of wood caused by cannon balls.” The last half of that sentence was expressed through teeth gritted in effort even though Dr. James was helping. The corpse was turned on to its stomach.

They stepped away and Gibbs got a look that the upper back. He frowned. “What the hell?”

Ducky sighed. “Excellent question. I have never seen anything like it.” 

GIbbs leaned over the body. From the base of the skull to just below the shoulder blades there was what looked like some kind of rash spreading over about two thirds of that area of the back. The skin looked thickened and was a dull red-purple color, almost like a bruise. A magnifying glass appeared in front of him. Gibbs took it and looked closer. He saw what looked like a couple of hundred tiny little red marks spread across the man’s upper back, especially over the spine. At the base of the skull there were three distinguishably larger red marks. These were clearly punctures, but whatever had done that to the kid had been pretty small.

“What ever caused this,” Ducky explained softly, “Had been in place for some time to have caused this kind of inflammatory response. It does not appear to be an allergic reaction, per se, but frankly, Jethro, I will need to get some skin samples under a microscope and Abigail will need to tell us just what might have been injected into Lance Corporal Riley before I can even guess at the cause of this. It does not help at all that the only external evidence of trauma, other than a rather large number of small scratches, is the bruise on his temple. That was a blow hard enough to cause a concussion and it is possible that it resulted in an subdural hemorrhage, though it would have had to have been bleeding rather slowly, as that bruise is clearly several days old.

Gibbs sighed. “Can you give me a time of death?”

Ducky glanced up at the clearly irritated man. “Oh, that, at least, seems to be clear. He appears to have died between 1800 and 2400 hours last night. I can’t get it closer than that because, as Dr. James was good enough to remind me, the ambient air temperature changes markedly during a 24 hour period at this altitude. As always, I’ll probably be able to be more exact on that once I have finished the autopsy.” 

Gibbs frowned and glanced at Tyler, “Do we know who the car was licensed to yet?”

“Yeah, Boss. It was his. I’ve got the arrangements done for getting it down to forensics. I’ll work on getting the body transported as soon as possible.”

Gibbs grunted in approval and looked again at the marks on the back of Lance Corporal Riley and muttered once more, “What the hell?”  
  


***

  
  
By the time they finished dinner in a rather scrungy cafe, Abby had more information for them. Riley had actually been born in the hospital where his body currently lay. “He went to high school in a little town up in the mountains named Ashford,” she told them. “His dad owns a grocery store up there. Oh, and his dad’s the mayor too.”

Gibbs told her she had done good work and that she should head home. He finished the last of his coffee and looked over at Tyler. “That where the CO said he was supposed to be going on leave?”

Tyler, his mouth full of his last few fries, nodded, chewed quickly, swallowed, and then said, “As far as his CO knew he was going home for a visit. He also says he called Riley’s dad this morning to ask him about his son. There is some sort of confusion going on because the dad was under the impression that his leave had been extended. Apparently until yesterday afternoon he was in town, acting normally and lied to his dad about getting the extra leave.” 

“We need to go talk to the father,” Gibbs said. He ignored the multitude of groans from around the table. He looked at his watch, then looked around at his team. They all looked beat. It was getting late. “You have a map of the area?”

Tyler wiggled his PDA. “ Just on this.” 

Gibbs sighed and gestured the waitress over. 

“You need more coffee, honey?”

He said, “No, thank you. We’re ready to go. Can you tell me the best way to get to Ashford?”

She had pulled her ticket pad out and was concentrating on adding. When she was finished, she put the ticket on the table upside down and said, “Ashford? Oh, that’s way up in the mountains.” She looked at him critically. “I wouldn’t try to get there tonight. The roads aren’t real good up there and there aren’t many lights. If you aren’t familiar with the area… “ She shook her head. “Those roads can be dangerous, hon. Young guy was found dead on one of the back roads just this morning. You should stay here tonight. The Rest-Inn is just across the street. Start out fresh in the morning.”

When they had paid and gotten back in the rental, McGee said, “Rest-Inn, Boss?” 

Gibbs just glared at him. He sighed and said, “Right. Mark, you are going to have to navigate.” The sun hadn’t quite set yet, but they were clearly going to be traveling on unfamiliar mountain roads in the dark before they got to Ashford. _What fun_ , McGee thought.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Warning: Major Character Death

  
  


**Part 2: Prodromal**  
_Prodromal: relating to or denoting the period between the appearance of initial symptoms and the full development of a disorder or disease_  
  


  


**Monday, July 22, 2007**  


  


Twenty-four hours since anyone had seen Rossi.  


Tony sat at the big table in the dancehall looking at his phone, suppressing the urge to throw it against a wall. He glanced around. The search team that the FBI had sent in had their own table, near the door, and a young black woman with neat corn rows was manning (You should excuse the expression, he thought to himself) a radio and two phone lines. Behind her was a copy of the map Reid had created, showing the town of Ashford in some detail, stuck up on the wall and covered with a large number of small sticky notes. 

Behind him he could hear Garcia, working away on something. He was currently on Garcia-is-not-to-be-left-alone duty and even though he would never leave her until another member of his team arrived, he wanted very much to get out and go talk to some more people. Which was pointless. He knew that they had already talked to just about everyone. 

Well, except for the mayor’s kid. And Tony would very much like to talk to _him_. The fact that he had not come home the night before and that his vehicle was missing as well made him very much a person of interest. 

He’d spent the last two years very carefully not mentioning, or even thinking about, rules, any rules at all, but right now Rule 39 was bouncing around in his head hard enough to start a headache: _There is no such thing as a coincidence._

Morgan most surely believed in Rule 39, even if he’d never heard of it, because he and Hotch had been working on the mayor since they’d learned the Riley kid was missing. Riley had gone surly on them early on, refusing to discuss the whereabouts of his son, until his wife had tearfully told them that the boy’s commanding officer had called that morning, wondering if they knew where he was, because he was AWOL. It was only then that the mayor admitted he had not seen the kid since shortly after lunch the day before. They had searched the Riley house, the Riley business and even the Riley hunting cabin, located on the other side of the ridge. There had been no sign of Justin Riley. No sign of his car.  


No sign of Rossi. 

Behind him he heard a gasp. He turned and saw Garcia staring at the screen of one of her laptops, her eyes wide. As he stood to go to her, she turned her eyes to him and said, “Justin Riley was found dead this morning.” 

He came to look over her shoulder. “Where?” 

She went back to work and eventually found the location on a small road some 30 miles from Ashford as the crow flies. Tony stared at the map a long time, shaking his head. That road did not appear to be on the way to or from anywhere in particular. Where had the kid gone and why was he dead?  


Garcia seemed to have read his mind on that one. “They don’t have a cause of death yet. The body has been transported to NCIS for autopsy.”  


Tony straightened, took a deep breath and didn’t realize he’d also taken several steps back until he ran into some of the tarp-covered sound equipment. His mouth had gone dry and his heart hammered. _Oh, for Christ’s sake, DiNozzo_ , he thought in disgust. _You are not going to have a panic attack over this._  


Garcia looked over at him, her eyes narrowed, but something gentle was in them nonetheless. “You know their medical examiner, don’t you? You could call him and find out what happened.”  


“Yeah. I know him, ” Tony rasped out. “But, trust me, Garcia, it would be better if you did the calling.” He was about to add that he preferred that his name not be mentioned when he was pulled out of his near panicked spiral of thoughts and memories by the sound of three gunshots.  
  


* * *

  
  
Mr. Riley was not being cooperative. He seemed almost indifferent to the news that his son was dead and was adamant that he knew nothing of what his son had been up to. His wife, almost as calm as he was, insisted that there had been a mistake, that her son would never be AWOL, that he wanted to be a career Marine. But her voice sounded odd, and she was shaking, fine tremors running across her body. Her husband glanced at her once, scowled, and told her to go upstairs. When she started for the door, Kate said, “Please stay, Ms. Riley,” and the woman sank onto the sofa while Kate explained that they wanted to finish their questions quickly and get out of their hair.

Every word from either of the Rileys was making Gibbs gut practically scream. Apparently his gut wasn’t the only one that was unhappy because he glanced behind him and saw Tyler speaking softly to Ziva. The woman nodded and disappeared into the next room, which appeared to be a dining room. As she crossed the threshold, she drew her weapon. McGee was right behind her.

Kate said, “I need you both to look at me.” When they had turned to her, not incidentally turning away from the dining room, she said, “I know it must be devastating to lose your son and learning that he may have been involved in something…” she hesitated, and both parents broke in to insist that their son had had permission to extend his leave and that the AWOL was just a clerical mistake. They spoke with intensity, but there was something missing in their expressions, their voices. They continued to speak for some time about their son, mentioning how proud they had been of his success in the Marines. 

Ziva and McGee returned to the room, shaking their heads at Tyler’s lifted eyebrow. This time, Riley noticed them, and stood. “What-- what were they doing? You can’t just come in here and search my house. At least the FBI had a warrant.”

Kate said, “They were not searching your home, Mr. Riley. They were just clearing it, making sure there were no bad guys here.” She looked very earnest, even in the face of Mark’s eye roll she could see over the shoulder of Mr. Riley. She didn’t intend to mention that Mark had sent the others to check because the Rileys’ behaviour seemed off. 

She started to ask about the FBI, but the sound of three gunshots in quick succession stopped her. The noise seemed very close, but that may have been because this town had so little ambient noise. Gibbs saw that all his people had drawn their weapons and were looking around warily. The Riley’s seemed frozen. Tyler reached over and turned off the lamp while Ziva turned off the overhead light from the switch at the door.

“Ziva, you stay here. The rest of you with me.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Garcia let out a little squeak and turned huge eyes to Tony, who took three quick steps, grabbed her wrist and pulled. She nearly fell out of her chair and was on the floor with her back to the wooden risers for the stage between two heavy metal racks full of speakers and other sound equipment before she had managed another breath. Tony let her go and turned to move something big and heavy in front of the little makeshift cave he had shoved her into, until the opening was no wider than he was. She drew another breath and heard him yell, “Get down, Harris. These walls are nothing but sheet metal.” She heard some scrabbling and heard the FBI tech who had been organizing the search for Rossi on her radio, her voice remarkably calm as she reported shots fired.

And then her brain turned back on and she whispered, “Derek.”

Tony glanced back at her from where he was crouched in the opening of her cave. She saw he had his weapon in one hand and was dialing his phone with the other. He sent her a quick grimace that might have been intended as a smile.

“Tony. You’ve got to go see if everyone is all right. I’m okay here. I’ll be safe. Go.”

He actually smirked at her, then looked down at his phone and cursed. “No signal.” 

“Tony,” she nearly begged. She had gotten used, more or less, to listening to their team going into a dangerous situation, but now, now when she didn’t know what was going on, who was shooting, who had been shot ( _Derek_?), she was terrified. And she wanted Tony out there helping with whatever was going on.

Tony was saying, “Harris, can you get those lights off without getting killed?” And he turned and looked at her. “Derek will kill me if I let you get hurt, Garcia,” he said, in deadly seriousness. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She looked around him and saw that the tech, Harris, was crawling across the floor to the wall near the entrance to Terry’s where the light switches were. Just as the woman was reaching up to the switches there was a loud bang. She saw the outside door slam open violently and then didn’t see anything, because Tony swung up onto his knees and reached back with one hand and shoved her head down to the ground. At the same time he shouted, “Federal agent!”

But his shout was nearly drowned out by the shouts of several others, all saying the same thing. “Federal agents! Don’t move!” She thought, They’re here. But before she could even feel relief she realized that she didn’t recognize the voices. 

And now the complete silence was more unnerving than the gunshots or the opening door had been. She kept her head down, hoping that she and Tony (and Harris) were not about to die.

Garcia heard Tony take a deep breath in the silence. Then, in a tone of voice she had never heard him use, he said, “Hey, guys. Good to see you. What brings you all up here?” She took that as a clue that things were going to be okay and lifted her head. Peering around Tony, she saw three men and a women, all with badges, all armed, though their weapons were lowering. All but one were staring at Tony as if they were seeing a ghost. 

Tony was saying. “Was that you guys shooting out there?” When they shook their heads, he said, “Well in that case, Harris, you had better finish killing the lights.” 

There was another moment of silence after the lights went out, leaving only the little light from the streetlight outside that managed to filter into the room. Tony said, “The shots came from back up the hill behind this building. I’d appreciate it if you’d check it out and make sure my team is alright.”

The woman almost whispered, “Tony. What…”

His voice became serious. “I can’t leave my friend here alone, but you guys can check the rest of my team out and make sure they don’t need help. Please.”

“Agent DiNozzo,” Harris said suddenly. Their eyes were still in the process of adjusting to the darkness in the room, but they could see she had one hand on her ear. She was staring at Tony. “They’re calling for a medic. One of our people is down.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Ziva paced the living room, keeping a close eye on the two Rileys. Something about them was bothering her, their complete silence not the least, but not the only thing. It made her edgy. She looked out from behind the curtain again, but saw very little. The neighborhood, if a place where houses were spaced so far apart could be called such, seemed very dark to her, used as she was to city life. There was only a single streetlight at an intersection of two streets, several doors away. The night was quiet. The only light in the room was from the kitchen, after its passage through the dark dining room.

She sighed and looked at the two people in her charge. They sat on the sofa together, close, but not touching. They were staring at her with expressionless faces lit in dim profile. She very nearly shivered at the strangeness of their behavior, and began pacing again. She was not going to let their silence get her horse… her sheep?... no, her goat. She almost smiled at that, thinking of Tony, the way he teased her failed attempts at vernacular and the fact that she never forgot a phrase when he had corrected her. Possibly the annoyance helped her remember. _Damn, I miss him_ , she thought.

There was a knock on the door, firm but not aggressive. She felt an actual flair of fear. These people really did have her goat. 

She pointed to the two people on the couch and then put her finger to her lips. There was a second knock.

A male voice said, “FBI. Please open the door.” It sounded more coaxing than authoritative. 

There was no peephole. She moved to the door and unlocked it as silently as possible, Then she backed away until she was between the Rileys and the door, raised her gun and called, “Open the door enough to put your arm through and show me your badge. 

The door opened slowly and hand extended through the opening holding a wallet with a badge. In the darkness of the room the metal reflected the light from the kitchen. She relaxed slightly and called. “Very well, you can open the door and come in,”

The man was tall, big, on the old end of middle-aged, and smiling at her. He wore a goatee. His hands were being held away from his body, one of them still clutched around the badge.

“Who are you?” she said. 

The man’s smile grew broader. “I’m Supervisory Special Agent Dave Rossi. And who might you be?”

She started to answer, but something hit her, hard, on the back of the head, and she fell.  
  


* * *

  
  
“We need a medic here, god damn it!” Hotch screamed over his shoulder, then went back to putting more pressure on the abdominal wound. There was blood everywhere and he was fighting the panic that tore at him.

Reid was talking softly to her, “Emily, Emily, come on. You can do this. You can do anything. You are the strongest woman I’ve ever known. Please, Emily. Just hang on.” 

Hotch looked up and saw the tears running down Reid’s cheeks.

A voice said, “Doc Albert will be here in 5.”

“Where is the nearest hospital?” Hotch asked. He looked up and saw several state police, a of couple agents, and two or three local people gathering around them.

Gil West crouched next to him and said, “Carbonville, 47 miles as the crow flies. Or the medevac flies. Joe’s calling. They have a doctor and a nurse who retired here in town and they take care of emergencies, get people stabilized so they can make the trip down the mountain to that place where you landed.”

Hotch and Reid looked at each other. Each saw the horror in the eyes of the other. Each was thinking about the amount of blood they saw around them in the swinging lights of multiple flashlights, the number of holes in Emily’s body, the pink froth that was leaking from the corner of her mouth. Reid lowered his gaze and whispered, “Oh, God.”

Hotch drew in a shaky breath and concentrated once more on pushing hard on the hole in her stomach. Prentiss groaned. Hotch leaned over, watching her eyes flicker, and said, loudly, “Emily. Emily, can you hear me? Come on, open your eyes.”

Prentiss whimpered, her body twisting, then she coughed, a horrible liquid sound. Bright red blood flew out of her mouth, and splashed hot across Hotch’s face. He just wiped at it with one hand and said, “Come on Emily.” He was nearly shouting now. “You need to tell us who did this. Come on Prentiss! I need your report.”

Prentiss coughed once more, a mix of pink foam and bright blood oozing from her lips. Then her gaze suddenly locked on Hotch’s. He smiled. “That’s it. That’s it. Come on, Emily. Talk to me.”

Her breathing was becoming more labored, and the wheezing seemed to overpower the other sounds around them. With her eyes still on his, she gurgled, “Rossi.”

“What?” Reid said.

Prentiss’s eyes were still boring into Hotch’s. “It was Rossi. He shot me.” Her voice was thick, gurgling, and her face was a mask of pain, but eyes stayed on him. 

Hotch felt a sudden, strange disarticulation from the scene, as if he’d been wrenched away from reality and he was watching this on TV. He could comprehend Emily Prentiss bleeding out here in front of him. He’d always known that sort of tragedy was a possibility in their work. He’d provided first aid in such situations before. But the idea that Rossi had committed this crime made no sense. It was pure madness. An impossibility. He had to have misunderstood her.

But Prentiss’ eyes held him captive, and she said, “Rossi shot me, Hotch.” Her eyelids flickered, lowered. Hotch could barely hear her as she whispered, “There was nothing.” She gasped desperately. Her face twisted in pain. It clearly took tremendous effort to say, “Nothing in his eyes. Nothing.”

Hands were on him suddenly. “Sir, I got this.” A soft southern accent. “Come on. Let me do this. Doc Albert’s used to working with me.” A pair of hands wearing surgical gloves pushed his hands out of the way, placed a thick gauze pad on the abdominal wound and pressed down. Another pair of hands lifted him away from Prentiss. He saw that Reid was also being moved out of the way by one of the state troopers. 

Where Hotch had been was older black man in shorts and a t-shirt, kneeling in the dirt next to Prentiss. The man put a second bandage over the wound in her chest and pressed down hard. Prentiss let out a wispy gurgling cry of pain. 

“I need light.” The voice was firm, calm, authoritative. Hotch watched as the man, presumably the doctor, who was dressed in a sweatshirt and what looked like pajama bottoms, knelt in the bloody dirt, pushing up his sleeves and looking up as one of the state troopers focused a large flashlight on Prentiss. “Thanks, Joe.” Then he looked up at Hotch. “This woman is one of your agents?”

Still in the detached unreal state that Prentiss’ words had locked him in, Hotch nodded. “Emily Prentiss.”

The doctor, a tall, rather strong-looking man who looked as if he was in his late 60s, turned back to Prentiss. “Okay, Billy,” he said to the black man across from him, who was putting an oxygen mask on Prentiss’s face. “I am going to get vitals. You start two liters of normal saline, 14 gauge needles, wide open. Gil, could you keep pressure on that wound on the left while we do this?” He started putting on gloves, but paused a moment, reached into the classic doctor’s bag next to him, pulled out a small rectangular object, pushed a button on it and clipped it to the neck of his sweatshirt, then finished putting on gloves. He pulled a large pair of scissors out that Hotch recognized as bandage shears. He started cutting Prentiss’ clothes away. In a quiet clinical voice, he said, “This is a well-muscled white female, approximately 35 years old, approximately 175 cm tall, with at least three large caliber gunshot wounds, one of which is a 3 cm graze to the lateral side of her upper right arm, one is between the fifth and sixth ribs about 6 cm to the right of the centerline of the sternum with no apparent exit wound, and the third is just below the eighth rib, in the upper left quadrant of the abdomen, approximately 4 cm left of midline, exiting between the seventh and eighth ribs on the patient’s left side.”

Hotch heard a soft, “Oh, no. Emily!” and saw JJ, gun in hand, staring down at the bloody body of her friend. She holstered her weapon and looked up at him. “What happened?” 

He shook his head, looked around again. More people. Morgan ran up, met his gaze and said, “Is Garcia… ?”

JJ murmured, “Tony’s with her,” and Morgan relaxed a little, looked around seeing people staring down at Prentiss, now half naked in the dirt. He started speaking loudly, “Officers, Agents, could you help me get this crowd back please. Folks, if you live here, please just go home unless you saw something that will be useful to us. Go home. There is nothing you can do.”

The doctor had been taking Prentiss’s blood pressure, and was shaking his head, expression grim. He grabbed several small pieces of gauze from the kit the other man had placed on Prentiss’s upper legs, and began pushing some into some place Hotch could not see, on Prentice’s side, near the back. As he did this, he went on with his dictation. “She is diaphoretic and cyanotic. Respirations are 34 and labored. Her pulse is 152, weak and thready. Her blood pressure is 58 over 36.” He stopped a moment, using the stethoscope to listen to several places on both sides of Emily’s chest and then said, “There are rales in the right upper and middle lobes and no breath sounds in the lower right lobe. Left lung is clear. There is a distinct deviation of the trachea to the left.” He looked around, then said, “I need to get something under her legs, boys.” He took the kit from the top of her legs and Gill West and Reid helped him lift her legs so he could tuck it under them, with the opening away from him and toward the nurse. He said, “Anything else we can put under here?” 

Both Reid and Morgan peeled out of their suit jackets and bundled them under Prentiss’ knees, lifting them a little more. 

Billy had been working with the efficiency that comes from a great deal of practice and had already started IVs in each of Prentiss’s arms. Now he handed the second IV bag to Hotch. He said, “Hold that please.” He turned to the nurse and said, “Get me a 12 gauge needle on a 50 milliliter syringe, Billy. We’ve got to get the air out of her chest. Damn, that abdominal wound is still bleeding badly.” He looked up, “I need more light here.” He was pointing to an area on the right side of the chest a few inches above and to the right of where the bullet had entered. The nurse had pulled Emily’s breast toward the center of her chest, so that the area was unobstructed. As the light increased there, the doctor swabbed the skin with a dark red-brown fluid, felt around for a moment, and then stabbed a large syringe with a huge needle into Prentiss’ chest. He carefully withdrew the plunger and then pulled the syringe itself off, leaving the needle sticking out of the skin. The sound of air whistling through the needle was clear. He watched her for a moment. “I’ve started decompression of the chest cavity on the right side with a 12 gauge needle. Her breathing is becoming a little less labored.” Hotch watched in horrified fascination as the needle moved with each breath and the sound of escaping air continued. 

The doctor now turned his attention to the wound on the other side. He shifted, obviously in pain, and cursed, “Goddamned knees. Don’t get old, Billy.”

“Too late, Marcus. Should have told me sooner.” They were both removing the gauze they had placed on the abdominal wound. Blood still poured out in pulses. The doctor shook his head. “Damn, damn, damn. That one might have gotten the splenic artery. Packing isn’t going to do it." He looked up. “I need every light we’ve got, boys,” and pulled out a small canvas kit, unrolling it, selecting a handle and holding it while Billy peeled open a little package, revealing a scalpel blade. He attached it to the handle the doctor was holding and then got out a large bottle of sterile water and a smaller bottle. He opened the latter and poured that same red-brown fluid all over the wound. The doctor murmured, “ Get me that curved 8 inch hemostat.”

As Billy opened another sterile package, the doctor used the scalpel to widen the wound by more than an inch. Reid blurted, “My god, aren’t you going to give her anything for the pain?”

“She’s unconscious, son.” The doctor said absently, peering into the hole the bullet and he had made, one finger reaching in her to a startling depth and exploring. “And we don’t have the time anyway.”

Billy poured water into the open wound and then offered a gauze sponge. The doctor took it. Hotch could not see exactly what he was doing, but a moment later, he said, “There you are, you little bastard,” and reached for the clamp that Billy was holding. He reached into the wound with it and tightened the jaws until the ratchet in the handle caught twice. Then he laid the instrument aside, with the nose still deep in the wound and looked up. “Wash that down again” He watched a moment, but the bleeding had slowed to a trickle. “Okay, that looks good. Let’s get this all bandaged. We’ve got transportation?”

“We’ve got the big SUV set up to get her to the intersection, Doc,” Gil West told him. “Life Flight says they are at least 30 minutes out. They are going to beat us there.” 

The doctor checked Prentiss’s blood pressure once more. He sighed, then and looked up at Hotch and the state trooper holding the two IV bags. “Boys, I need you to squeeze those bags. Not real hard. Just put pressure on them. Let’s get her intubated, Billy. She needs more oxygen.” 

Billy pulled a plastic box out of the pack next to him and handed it to the doctor, then he pulled out an ambu bag. The doctor ripped the sterile cover off the kit but before he could start, Billy, who had moved to tilt Prentiss’s head back, said, “Not breathing, Doc.” He put a finger on her throat. “No pulse.”

To Hotch, the scene that had seemed to be moving so quickly suddenly slowed to a crawl. The two men went into the careful choreography of Advanced Cardiac Life Support. Intubation, then chest compressions followed by a portable defibrillator and drugs and more chest compressions, in a series of algorithms that needed only a few quiet, unhurried words to communicate, and Hotch stood there, encased in a strange silence that seemed to filter out all the ambient noise, watching as they moved, feeling the blood on his hands start to dry. Morgan said something. Hotch heard, but did not understand and did not care. He looked up once and saw Reid, standing hunched and miserable. He thought he should try to offer comfort, but he could not move. The next time he looked up, Morgan had an arm around Reid, who was leaning into him, wiping at tears, not noticing that he was smearing blood on his face. 

Hotch saw the nurse, kneeling at Emily’s head, squeezing the ambu bag rhythmically, murmuring quietly, “It’s okay, Emily. Everything will be okay. We’ve got you.” The man sounded calm and confident but Hotch was pretty sure he was lying. Arms went around him and he realized JJ was holding on to him while she watched, her head pressed against his chest. 

Time passed. Emily’s eyes were unmoving, one slightly more open than the other. The doctor and his nurse worked. Eventually they slowed, stopped. They shared a glance, and the doctor sighed. He looked up at Hotch and said, "I'm very sorry." He looked at his watch, said, “Time of death 9:52 pm,” and then pulled the recorder off the neckband of his sweatshirt and turned it off.  
  


* * *

  
  


Tyler came back in the room and moved over to where Gibbs was standing, looking at the map on the wall. He said, quietly, “The FBI has lost one of their people. All hell's breaking loose around here. Nobody seems to know what the fuck is going on.” He sighed. “I tried to call Ziva but the Feebies say the cell service is pretty spotty up here. I’m going to go get her.”  


Gibbs nodded, allowed himself to glance at Tony once more. His former SFA had made it clear with his body language that he did not want to talk to, or be anywhere near him. Gibbs had every intention of respecting that. Tony was sitting at a table next to a plump blonde woman, his arm around her. She'd been crying and Tony looked very much like he wanted to.

As Tyler left, three men and a woman came into the room. Two of the men, one a tall, dark, slender man and the other even taller, younger, fairer, and far more slender, had a lot of blood on them. The third man, who was black, with a shaved head, moved quickly to the blonde woman, who stood up and more or less threw herself into his arms. He held her very tightly, but turned his head to look at Tony and said, “It was Emily.”

The blonde made a little sound of protest and the man holding her pulled away and looked into her eyes as he said, “She didn’t make it, Pen.”

The cry of grief that the woman made was punctuated by the crash as Tony threw something across the room, growling, and then walked in a quick circle, hands in his hair, muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Gibbs looked at the woman, a beautiful blonde, who had come in with them. She was standing in the middle of the room, looking down at her hands as she made fists and then relaxed them. Then she looked up, met his eyes and scowled. Her gaze swept over him and she relaxed slightly when she saw the badge. She walked over to him and said, “I’m Special Agent Jennifer Jareau, with the FBI.” 

He took her hand, noticing quite a bit of blood smeared on her clothes, in what was clearly secondary transfer. She’d probably been hugging one or both of the two blood-splattered men who had come in with her. He said, “Jethro Gibbs, NCIS.” He gestured to the other two NCIS agents. “Special Agents Kate Todd and Tim McGee.”

She said, “I’m a little surprised to find NCIS here, Agent Gibbs.”

“We had a dead Marine not far from here. We were interviewing his parents when we heard the shots.”

She nodded, eyes widening. “Justin Riley.”

“Yeah.”

“What… What was the cause of death.”

“We don’t know yet. Autopsy results are pending.”

She nodded again and turned to look at the blonde woman crying and the black man holding her. Her eyes went to Tony and he could see a great deal of distress in them. 

“She was one of yours? A team mate?”

She nodded once more. 

The tall, dark man moved suddenly from where he had been standing just inside the door. His expression was grim but there was a look of determination in his eyes. There was also a lot of blood on his face. He approached Agent Jareau and started to put a hand on her shoulder, seemed to see the blood on his fingers, and pulled it back. Clearing his throat, he said, “JJ.”

She turned to him, and Gibbs saw her chin was wobbling a little. “This is Special Agent Gibbs, Hotch. From NCIS. He is investigating the death of Justin Riley.” To his surprise, her voice did not waiver. She sounded professional, cool. 

Hotchner’s reaction to the news of Justin Riley’s death was the same as Jareau’s had been, the widened eyes of surprise, but the man shook his head, and Gibbs had the distinct impression that he was putting the death of the Riley boy aside for the moment. “I’m Aaron Hotchner, Agent Gibbs. We spoke on the phone about a year ago.”

Gibbs saw Tony’s head come up, a look of surprise flashing across his face, then an “Of course” look replaced it. Gibbs brought his eyes back to Hotch’s and said, “I’m sorry we had to meet in these circumstances, Agent Hotchner. I hear the dead woman was one of your team.”

Hotch swallowed. “Yes,” he said. “I’d like to hear what you can tell me about Riley, but I need to get my people to bed first. We have another agent that is missing… “ He stopped. Gibbs saw a look of pure anguish float across his features before the face became almost expressionless again. “They haven’t had anything but cat naps for more than 36 hours.” 

Gibbs nodded and took a step back, knowing that he had no place in the next conversation. Quietly, he told Kate and McGee, “You two head over to that place next door. Check in and get some sleep. Make sure they have room for all of us. I’ll bring Ziva and Tyler over in a minute. We’re not going to get anything else done tonight."

Hotch had turned to look at his team. He took a deep breath and said, “I want you all to go to your rooms and get some sleep. You can’t do anything right now and you need rest.” There were mumbles of protest, but Hotch repeated, “You can’t do anything now. Agent Wilbanks will be taking over the investigation into Emily’s death and you will be no use for that or for anything else if you don’t sleep. Go.”

There were more grumbles, but they all seemed to understand that they could not keep going indefinitely. As they began to collect personal items, he added, “I want you to stay with at least one other person. Double up on the rooms. Our unsub is clearly willing and able to engage a federal agent.” They stood a moment and looked at him. He waved a hand at them wearily, “Go. We’ll talk about where we are at breakfast. Go on.”

Gibbs thought about what Hotch had just said, and decided to give the same orders to his agents when he got to the inn.

They began to shuffle out of the room, their shoulders slumped, their feet dragging. Gibbs watched, remembering what it felt like when one of yours was killed. He saw Agent Jareau wrap her arm around the waist of the tall, fragile-looking young man and tug him towards the door. Hotch turned back to Gibbs, gestured at the table and said, “Let's sit.”

Gibbs said, “I think you need to sleep, Agent Hotchner. Your advice to your team was good.”

Hotch shook his head, “No, I can--” 

He stopped when Tony put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Hotch. We are going to get this bastard, but we can’t do it if we are too tired to think. Go on with the others. I want to have a quick word with Agent Gibbs, then I’ll be right behind you.”

After a moment, Hotch nodded. He turned and nodded at Gibbs, and then followed the others out the door. Tony watched him until he was gone and the door closed. Then suddenly his lips were trembling and he turned away. Gibbs didn’t move. After a few minutes more, Tony turned back to him and he had his face under control. He took a deep breath and said, “You look good, Gibbs.”

Gibbs snorted, shook his head. “You look like shit, Tony. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Tony was standing four feet from him, his body stiff. 

Gibbs hesitated, then asked, “So what was the BAU doing up here anyway?”

For a moment he didn’t move. Then he said, “A bunch of missing persons.” He shook his head. “Gibbs…”

“Yeah, Tony?”  
“I should have called you a long time ago. I was just too much of a coward to--”

The door slammed open and Tyler was standing in the doorway, panting. He didn’t seem to even see Tony. He said, “I tried to call. The phones…” he made a slashing gesture with his hand. “I can’t find Ziva. The Rileys say she left their house half an hour ago with an FBI agent. She’s not answering her phone.”

Tony said, “Shit!” He ran his hand through his hair. “She was at the Riley’s?” 

Gibbs started for the door, and Tony followed, leaving Tyler for a moment, staring after them. Then he turned and followed at a jog. When he got to Tony he held out a hand. “Mark Tyler.”

Tony took the extended hand and said, “Tony DiNozzo.”

Tyler smirked. “Oh, I know who you are.”

Gibbs stopped, turned, and barked, “DiNozzo, I think you told your boss you’d be right behind him.”

Tony faced him. “Unexpected circumstances, Gibbs.”

“Bullshit. Go to bed. We’ve got this.”

Tony took another step, “I’m on your six, Gibbs, until we figure out where Ziva is.”

Tyler said, very softly, “I’ve got his six, DiNozzo. It’s my job now. You quit, remember?”

Tony turned to him, with with building rage in his eyes. Gibbs watched, wondering if he was going to have to separate them. The expression on Tyler’s face was calm and determined. There was no condemnation in those brown eyes and no response at all to Tony’s suddenly aggressive stance. Tyler had a knack for defusing anger and it was in full force now. Tony seemed to deflate. Tyler was stating a fact, no more. And the truth was that Tony was too tired to argue about it. Gibbs knew Tony and Tony was completely exhausted. 

Tony took a deep shuddering breath and Gibbs reached out before he could think about it enough to stop and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. Feeling that Tony was too fragile for much more, he said gently, “We’ve got this, Tony. Go to bed. We’ll find her. And then you and I can talk in the morning.” 

Tony hesitated. Tyler said, “I’ve got him, man,” and he sounded like he was taking a vow. They stared at each other a moment. Then Tony nodded and stood watching for a while as they jogged together down the street towards the Riley house.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please join me in thanking Deejaymil for the great beta job. Any problems you see are mine, not hers.

**Tuesday, July 23, 2007**

Hotch looked over his team. 

What was left of his team. 

They were gathered in his room because that seemed the only place they could talk in private. The restaurant downstairs, usually closed this time of year, had been opened up to accommodate the influx of federal agents, but it was small and already overrun. The coffee shop down on the main drag was full to capacity with locals. The “dance hall at Teddy’s” had been taken over by the team that was officially investigating the disappearance of Dave Rossi and the death of Emily Prentiss. 

So he looked them over where they were sitting on the bed and on the two chairs, except Reid; curled up on the floor near the bathroom with his cheek on his knee and his face blank with misery. 

He had gone over what they knew, which was almost nothing at all. He mentioned that the mayor had become openly hostile to the federal agents, insisting to anyone he could make hold still long enough that he wanted “the government” out of his town. He told them about the missing NCIS agent. They listened quietly, with no comments and no questions.

Then he said, “Strauss wants us back in DC this afternoon.”

That got a reaction. JJ looked up, a fight in her eyes. Garcia looked stubborn. Morgan and DiNozzo looked pissed. 

“I managed to convince her that we need to be here so we can be questioned by Wilbanks and his team, but we are to report to her at headquarters by 4 tomorrow afternoon.”

Morgan had stood, and now he started pacing. “This is some bullshit, Hotch.” He turned and glared at his unit chief. “I’m not leaving Rossi here in this freakshow town. He’s expecting us to get him out and we’re going to do that.”

Though he didn’t move, Hotch saw Spencer’s eyes come up and seemed to pin him in his chair.

“He’s probably dead, Derek.” JJ said softly. “You know that.”

Morgan turned on her. “He’s like any other victim, JJ. He’s not dead until we have a body.” 

Reid raised his head for the first time since they’d arrived in the room and said, “Why did you call it a freakshow town, Morgan?”

Morgan turned away from Hotch, but instead of facing Reid, he turned to the window and looked through the blinds a moment. Then he said, “I don’t know. There is something about the people here that just seems… strange.”

DiNozzo said, “Yeah. I’ve felt it, too. Rossi said something about them being in shock or something. Not all of them. But some of the people here have a weird vibe. They don’t have a flat affect per se, but it _feels_ like they have a flat affect. Even when they are expressing emotions, it feels… wrong. Look at the mayor. Two days ago he was a little man in a largely ceremonial place of authority who had suddenly found himself responsible for dealing with a real crisis, with none of his usual support left to help. That’s what he looked like. That’s how he acted.”

JJ said, “I felt sorry for him.”

Tony nodded. “But did you see him this morning? He was ranting and yelling and being hostile all over the place, but somehow all of that didn’t seem… “

“Real,” Morgan said. “It seems like he’s playing a part. He’s good at it, but it is still a part.” He sighed and then ran his hands over his shaved head. “I don’t even know that that means.”

Garcia spoke up suddenly, her voice soft, “I’m scared.”

Everyone turned to her. Her expression was solemn, but she hadn’t cried again this morning. Hotch had thought that she was okay.

“I want to get out of here.”

There was a moment of silence and then Hotch said, gently “There’s no reason for you to be here anymore, Garcia. I’ll get someone to drive you—”

She turned on him, her eyes flashing with anger. “No!” She took a deep breath and shot a look to Morgan. “No. I’m staying here with you guys. But I’m scared, Hotch. I don’t even know what I’m scared of, but I’m scared.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


The man who opened the door was short and middle-aged and looked like he had slept in his clothes. His eyes went to Kate’s badge, and he snarled, “Get out,” before she had finished introducing them.

Tim said, “Mr. Riley, we need to ask you a few more questions.”

“No. Everything was fine here until you people came. Now my son is dead and my wife is sick and I am not talking to you any more. Get out.”

“Your wife is ill?” Kate said. She remembered the way the woman had had fine tremors the night before. Mark had mentioned that the woman had been shaking even more while the couple was being questioned about the FBI agent who had supposedly told Ziva she was needed back “at Teddy’s”. 

But the little man said, “That’s none of your business.”

Behind them a voice said, “No, that’s _my_ business. Good morning, Harold.”

The two NCIS agents turned and saw an old man wearing cargo shorts and a t-shirt under an open short sleeved plaid shirt. He was carrying a doctor’s bag. He offered his hand to Kate and said, “I’m Dr. Albert.” 

“Special Agent Todd. This is Special Agent McGee.”

He smiled. “I don’t usually practice much these days, and I certainly don’t make house calls very often.” He sent a significant look to Riley. “But with all the upset around town this morning, I decided I’d better make sure Celia is alright.”

Mr. Riley stepped back to let the doctor in and then slammed the door, almost literally in Tim’s face.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Hotch had given them a list of people to re-interview. They were getting ready to leave when Reid suddenly blurted, “We have to tell them, Hotch.”

Hotch felt his stomach knot so hard he felt nauseous. The others turned to Reid, but his eyes were locked on Hotch. In them he saw determination and misery and something else. It might have been pity. He swallowed and said, “Reid…”

Reid shook his head. “They have to know what she said, because if it is true—”

“It _can't_ be true.” Hotch snapped. They continued to stare at each other. From the corner of his eye, Hotch saw Morgan’s head tilt to one side, his eyes switching back and forth between them. 

Reid said, “But they need to know, Hotch. Whether it is true or not.” His chin came up. “If you don’t, I will.”

He was right. Hotch knew he was right. He just couldn’t… 

It was impossible. 

He felt his knees go weak, suddenly back in the darkness of that hillside with Emily lying there, covered in blood, dying, desperate to tell them something that was impossible. He sank onto the bed, and buried his face in his hands, suddenly completely undone. 

Morgan said quietly, “What are you talking about?”

All Hotch could think was, _Dave. Goddamn it, Dave_. He’d started out as a mentor, became a close friend, then he’d retired and they’d drifted apart. And then, just when Gideon had torn his family apart, Dave had come back. He’d been a pain in the ass. He’d been arrogant and far more self assured than he should have been. He’d been the ground that Hotch could stand on while he rebuilt his team. He couldn’t have killed Prentiss.

But Reid was kneeling on the floor in front of him, hands on Hotch’s shoulders. His voice was gentle, and there was no question about the pity now. “She was telling the truth, Hotch. She even knew that we would have trouble accepting it and fought through pain and fear to make sure we understood.”

After a long moment of silence, Hotch lifted his head. “You’re right. We have to tell them. I don’t believe it, Reid. I can’t believe it. But you’re right. They need to know. They need to know.”

“Know what?” DiNozzo said.

Hotch stood, offered a hand to help Reid up. Together they turned to the others. Hotch drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I should have told you last night. Or this morning. Emily was conscious for a little while. She said…” His voice just stopped. He couldn’t say it.

Reid took over. “She said it was Rossi.” In the stunned silence, he continued. “She said Rossi shot her. She was very clear. She said it several times.” His voice had broken and there were tears in his eyes, but there was no doubt in his tone. 

“That’s not possible,” DiNozzo said, the first of the voices denying the possibility.

Hotch sighed. “I know. But Reid is right. We should have told you before. If we find him and he…” He still couldn’t say it. He looked over his team. Every single one of them was shaking their heads, dismay and disbelief clear in their expressions. “Just be careful out there. Please. Please, just be careful.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Gibbs swallowed a big gulp of coffee, the last of the cup Tyler had brought him, and looked around at his team. With the help of all the state police and FBI, they had searched the entire town, including some of the more isolated cabins up on the mountain above the town. There had been no sign of Ziva, no sign of the missing FBI agent.

They were sitting in a little park near one end of the main street. There was a small flower garden that had been carefully attended by someone, but the benches they were sitting on needed paint or they wouldn’t stand up to many more winters. The air was hot and unusually humid for a mountain town. He hadn’t seen a weather report, and there was nothing more than an occasional fluffy cloud, but he was pretty sure that there was rain coming. 

He had no idea what to do next. 

His team looked tired. God knew he was tired. He remembered last night when he’d told Hotchner he should sleep. It had been good advice. He sighed. “Anyone have anything else?”

They all shook their heads.

“Okay. Go get some sleep. Be in that coffee shop at 7 tonight. At the rate things have been happening around here we will probably have something to investigate by then.”

They all stood, but McGee said, “Boss, I keep thinking about Ziva out there somewhere. There has to be something we can do.”

His expression said he was expecting a verbal slap down, but Gibbs found he didn’t have the energy. “Go to bed, Tim,” he said mildly. McGee stared at him a moment, exchanged looks with Tyler and Kate and then shook his head. He turned and started away, followed by the others. Tyler turned back and said, “You, too, Boss.”

Gibbs nodded, his eyes on the other side of the street. “I’ll be along in a minute. I want to finish my coffee.”

Tyler followed his gaze and saw DiNozzo crossing the street in their direction. He started for the inn, but as he passed the FBI agent, he murmured, “He needs sleep.” DiNozzo shot him a look and nodded.

Tony was carrying two coffee cups. He handed one to Gibbs and sat down at the other end of the bench. They were quiet for a long time.

Finally, Tony said, “I shouldn’t have just left like that. It was a lousy way to behave, especially after… after everything.”

Gibbs turned to look at him. “I understand not wanting to work with me any more, Tony, after the way I treated you. But just walking away from the team without so much as a ‘Kiss my ass’ was rough. I didn’t deserve anything better, but they did.”

Tony sighed. “I know. I was… I was in a really bad place, Gibbs. I couldn’t explain I was leaving without explaining why I was leaving and I couldn’t,” his voice dropped to a whisper. “I couldn’t.”

Gibbs shook his head, tilted his head up to look at the sky. “Why not, Tony? You think they wouldn’t believe I had been _that_ much of a bastard?”

Tony blinked at him. “What?”

Gibbs turned once more and their eyes met. He had a flash of memory of an ex-Catholic friend talking about confession and how good it felt to say out loud, “I done fucked up,” and realized that part of his misery the last two years had been knowing that Tony didn’t know Gibbs was aware of just how badly he’d behaved. “I treated you like shit, Tony,” he said intently. “I knew you had a thing for me. If I hadn’t been so fucking selfish I would have transferred you to another team once I realized how serious it was. But I didn’t want to lose your skills and I figured you’d get over it.” He sighed and took a drink of the coffee Tony had brought him. “Everyone always does.” 

Tony snorted without looking especially amused. 

Gibbs put the cup down and said, “So we had a one night stand when I knew very well that you wanted more than that.” _He'd_ wanted more than that. He’d been too much of a coward to let himself have it. “It was a rotten thing to do to you.”

Tony was staring at him in what looked like complete confusion. “I don’t understand. I was the one who…” he swallowed. “I was the one who got you drunk while you were still recovering from that coma, when your memories were still scrambled, and took advantage of you. It was...” He swallowed again, heavily. “It was as close to rape as I’ve ever come, Gibbs.”

It was Gibbs’ turn to be confused. “What? Tony, I wasn’t drunk. I was tipsy, maybe. And maybe a little giddy that we’d gotten that bastard Mickey and cleared the petty officer, and that I apparently wasn’t completely incapable of doing the job anymore. I wasn’t drunk. I was just happy. I just… I just wanted you.” 

His mind went back to the moment he’d known it, weeks before, in the middle of chasing down the people who had framed Ziva, in an elevator as Tony read him the riot act about not sitting on the sidelines when his people were in trouble. He’d head-slapped him and Tony had said, “You know I could arrest you for striking a federal officer.” 

And he’d said, “I know that.”

And as they moved around each other so Tony could go and get McGee, something deep inside, something battered, abused, denied, and buried over and over again had exploded. He rode the elevator down with panic building in him. He had been within a fraction of a second of reaching out and pulling Tony into his arms, pressing his lips on Tony’s. 

It was something he found that he could no longer bury, not anymore. He’d intended to at least never let DiNozzo know, because he didn’t understand it, didn’t trust it, and wouldn’t take a chance on hurting the man. 

Those good intentions hadn’t lasted a month and he was deeply embarrassed about that. He’d spent the last two years berating himself for the failure to control himself. 

But now, they stared at each other a moment while he wondered how Tony could possibly have interpreted events the way he apparently had. Finally, Tony said, “I think we see what happened very differently.”

“Ya think?”

Tony dropped his eyes and took a drink. Looking out at the flower beds, he said, “So if you wanted me, why did you tell me we were over just as fast as you could? I thought you were, well, horrified, by what we’d done. And then Jenny offered me that job at Rota and I knew you’d asked her to get me out of there. ”

Gibbs thought back to that painful conversation in his car, at the end of their first big case after he’d come back. He’d been in a flat panic. He didn’t understand what he was feeling. The only thing remotely like it had been his early days with Shannon and it seemed almost blasphemous to him that he could have that kind of passion for anyone else. He’d tried to use the excuse that he was back to being Tony’s boss now. The skeptical look Tony had thrown him had stopped that before he’d gotten all the way through it. 

Finally he had told Tony that it was too much of a change in his life. That was pure bullshit. He'd known he was bisexual for many years before he'd ever heard the term. It was true that his experience with men was limited, because he'd never even considered cheating on Shannon, and later, he wasn't really interested in quickies in park bathrooms and he had seldom had opportunities for anything else. But he'd let Tony think he was afraid of being gay, and Tony had been so painfully understanding. It wasn’t until Gibbs had insisted that the problem was his own, not Tony’s that the younger man had burst out, “God, Gibbs, I really don’t need the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ speech. Not from you. For the love of God, not from you.” And he’d jumped out of the car and left, not looking back. 

Just remembering still hurt so badly that he couldn’t help the wince, but then what Tony had just said filtered all the way into his brain and he said, “Wait. You thought I asked Jenny to get you another assignment?

Tony nodded, his eyes scanning over Gibbs’ face. 

“No, Tony. No, I wasn’t ‘horrified’. You weren’t the first man I’d been with. Not even close. And no, I didn’t ask Jen to reassign you.” He heard how gruff his voice was and cleared his throat. “I didn’t know about that until after you were gone.”

Gibbs took another sip of coffee. For a long time they both stared at the flowers. Finally Tony said, “So this is all because neither one of us can just talk about stuff.”

Still staring at the flowers, Gibbs said, “You talk all the time, DiNozzo. It’s getting you to shut up that is hard.”

But Tony wasn’t playing games. He said, “Not about anything that really matters. Not about what I, we, should have talked about.”

There was another long silence. Then Tony said, “You thought I thought you had used me to have a little party and then threw me aside. I thought you were pissed that I had,” he swallowed. “That I had taken advantage of you when you were were only marginally able to consent.”

“We’re both a couple of idiots, DiNozzo.”

Another silence. “Yeah,” Tony said. 

There was a breeze making the trees murmur around them. There were bees in the flowers. The two men sat on the bench. Gibbs felt almost sick with relief that Tony hadn’t thought Gibbs was using him. He was also sick that Tony had spent the past two years dealing with a guilt he shouldn’t have had to deal with. 

And Ziva was still out there somewhere, needing them. Needing him.

He was very, very tired. 

But for once, he was going to try to say something. His throat thick with what he had to admit was nerves, he said, “So when this is over…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “When this is over, I think we need to have a long conversation.” He looked up at Tony. He couldn’t define the expression he saw except in terms of its intensity. He found himself blurting, “I don’t want to be an idiot about you anymore, Tony.” And using what little emotional courage he had, he lifted a hand and put it gently on the side of Tony’s face.

Tony’s eyes fluttered closed and he leaned slightly into the touch. When he opened his eyes they were shining with tears that he did not let fall. Instead, he put his hand on Gibbs’ hand for a moment, murmuring, “When this is over.”

 

The faint sound of footsteps suddenly reminded them both that they were in public. Gibbs dropped his hand, looked around. No one seemed to be watching them. The footsteps had come from across the street from a woman walking away. He turned back to Tony and saw that he had regained his composure. He was about to say something, but Tony beat him to it. 

“I sort of promised your SFA that I would make you get some sleep.” He stood and offered his hand. “Let's get you to the inn.” Gibbs let him pull him to his feet, collected the coffee cups around him and put them in the little trash receptacle there in the park. And they started up the hill as if nothing of particular importance had just happened.

 

***

  


Gibbs walked out of the inn just before 5 in the afternoon, and then walked along to the big porch that fronted the bar and dancehall next door. He found Hotch standing there, looking across the street where a man was nailing planks over the windows of a hunter’s supply store while a woman carried suitcases to a large 4-door pickup parked in front. Three kids were bouncing around in the back seats. 

“They’re leaving town?” Gibbs asked.

“Quite a few of them have started leaving. I don’t blame them,” Hotch said evenly. 

“Something else happened?” 

“We’ve confirmed that two more locals and a state police officer have disappeared.”

Gibbs said softly, “Jesus.” He watched another, far less expensive truck go by with contents heavily tarped and a young couple in it. “Has anything like this happened before?”

“Not that we know of.”

“It can’t be a single perp. It’s got to be a group. Maybe some kind of cult.”

Hotch nodded absently. Gibbs followed his gaze to see a medium-sized but solid-looking black man in his 60s coming up the street. When he reached the two agents standing on the porch he stopped, breathing heavily. Gibbs looked him over while he caught his breath. He saw anxiety, with fear waiting in the wings.

The man had turned to Hotch and said, “Agent Hotchner, I don’t know if you remember me. I was working with Dr. Albert when your agent was injured. I’m William Hinton.”

Hotch managed to suppress the wince that wanted out and shook the man’s hand, saying, “I do remember you, Mr. Hinton. My whole team is very grateful for the effort you put into trying to save Emily’s life.”

“Call me Billy,” he replied. “Even at my age, Mr. Hinton is my daddy.” 

Gibbs snorted and Billy looked at him with a little grin, but that faded pretty quickly. 

Hotch said, “This is Special Agent Gibbs. He’s with NCIS.”

Billy said, “Really? Oh, of course. Justin Riley was a Marine.”

“Did you know him, sir?”

“Just to say hello to. We’ve only lived here five years or so and he’s been gone most of that time.” He hesitated, then looked up at Hotch and said, “Agent Hotchner, have you seen Doctor Albert today?”

Hotch frowned, “No, I don’t think I have.”

Billy sighed. “I’ve tried calling him, but the phones seem to be down.”

“I understand that coverage can be pretty spotty here.”

Billy frowned, “Not here in town, usually. I mean you can usually find enough bars to make a call if you walk around a little, even when they aren’t cooperating.” He shook his head. “Anyway. I haven’t been able to find him. He was supposed to stop at the Riley’s this morning to check on Celia and then come over here to see if there was anything he could do to help. I had some work around the house and then I was going to come over myself, but when I got here this morning they told me he had never made it here. I’ve spent the last few hours looking for him. I can’t find him.”

Gibbs said, “He made it to the Riley’s. My agents were trying to talk to them when he arrived.”

He saw Hotch’s shoulders slump. “Did you talk to the Rileys?”

Billy shook his head. “No answer. I tried back there several times, but there was no answer when I knocked.”

Hotch and Gibbs looked at each other.

”It seems like quite a bit of the trouble around here centers on that family,” Gibbs said thoughtfully. 

Hotch said, “I think we need to talk to Mr. Riley whether he wants us to or not.”

Gibbs nodded. “Better get a couple more agents.” 

He went into the dancehall and saw that McGee was still talking intently with the BAU’s technical expert, who looked tired and sad. Kate, Tony, and the tall man he’d been introduced to that morning as Dr. Spencer Reid were standing in a group, talking. He whistled and said, “Todd, DiNozzo, with me.”

McGee stood up. Gibbs waved him back down and he did so, looking uncertain. By that time, the agents he’d called and Reid had joined him. As they walked out the door, he explained what was going on. Hotch introduced them to Billy. Reid held on to his hand for a long time, saying nothing, but as if he had, Billy nodded, and patted Reid’s hand before releasing it.

They started up the street. Tony was talking about the fact that everyone, even the state police and the federal agents, were tending to walk in this town. Billy said that parking spaces were at a premium here and it didn’t make much sense to go to the trouble of getting in a car when you could get there nearly as fast walking. He seemed more anxious as they walked. He stopped, suddenly and said, “He’s in trouble, agents. I know it.”

They all stopped and turned to him. Hotch said, “Why?”

Billy seemed to straighten his shoulders as if bracing himself, and took a deep breath. “If something had happened so that he decided not to come up here, he’d have called me or come home and told me. I know him, agents. We’ve been together thirty-seven years. We met in Vietnam, when he was just out of medical school and I was a 91-alpha.” He stopped and stood there, as if expecting something. 

Reid said, “Ninety-one A or Alpha was the Military Occupation Speciality, or MOS, of an Army combat medic until 2001, when that MOS was changed to 91W. All 91Ws will be required to have completed extra training by the end of September. Once their extra training is complete, they are now designated 68W.”

Billy was staring at Reid as if he had grown an extra head. Tony put a hand on his shoulder and said, “He does that. He’s our very own live Wikipedia. Don’t worry about it. You guys have been together since, what, 1970?”

Billy nodded, still staring at Reid. “Yeah. I mean, I went to nursing school while he finished his residency, but except for that, we’ve managed to stay together, no matter what. What I am saying is I know him.” He hesitated. “With all the crap going on in this town right now… I’m scared shitless. I…” He looked up at Tony. “I can’t lose him, agent.” 

Hotch said, “We will do everything we can to find him. I promise you that.”

They continued up the street and turned the corner. As they approached the house, Gibbs saw a curtain in a second floor room flicker a little. He glanced at Kate and she nodded. He saw Tony tell Billy to stay on the street. As they went up the stairs to the porch Gibbs noticed that both Kate and Tony unsnapped the holding strap on their weapons. He’d done it too. This was the last place anyone had seen Ziva. With a look and a barely visible hand signal he sent them around back. 

Hotch knocked. There was no answer. Hotch and Gibbs shared a glance. Gibbs shrugged, drew his pistol, and kicked the door in. Tony did the same with the back door a beat later. Hotch and Tony both yelled, “FBI”

Gibbs noticed that the tall, gangly Reid looked nearly as professional at the process of clearing the rooms on the ground floor as his own agent or Tony did. As they finished they all heard a loud thumping noise. Hotch and Gibbs went up the stairs together, Hotch shouting, “FBI, Mr. Riley. We just want to talk to you.” 

They heard a crash from the back of the house and ran to that room. Gibbs was pleased to see Kate and Reid both continued clearing the upstairs rooms as he and Hotch ran into what was clearly the master bedroom in the back of the house. Tony, he noted, had turned back down the stairs. Gibbs was pretty sure that was a good idea. 

As they entered the bedroom, Gibbs noticed two things immediately. First was the smell. Something or someone had been dead in this room for several days. He also saw that the window had been smashed. He ran to it, looking down to the ground outside, seeing Riley getting up and trying to stagger away. He heard Tony yelling at him to stop, but the man continued until Tony came up behind him and gave him a push that sent him to the ground. 

Kate arrived in the doorway, her nose wrinkling. He told her to help Tony and turned to the scene on the bed where a dead woman lay. Next to the bed was a man in his late 60s, his hands tied behind him, his ankles bound together. Gibbs realized the thump they had heard was him falling, deliberately or not, off the bed. 

He crouched next to the old man, as Hotch felt for a pulse. “He’s alive. You might want to get Billy in here.”

“I’ll get him,” Reid said softly.

Gibbs watched while Hotch cut the line that was holding his wrists. The man appeared to be unconscious. Gibbs straightened and looked at the woman on the bed. It was Mrs. Riley, as he thought, but the smell coming from her was what he would have expected from a three-day old corpse, rather than a woman dead for no more than 18 hours or so, even assuming the air conditioning had been off, which it certainly wasn’t now. 

Billy came into the room at a run and fell to his knees beside his partner, hands trembling as he examined him. He found a large swelling on the back of the man’s head, but the wound was clearly hours old. Gibbs noticed that Doc Albert’s wrists and ankles showed signs of a frantic effort to work off the bindings that had held them. His old skin had split and bled profusely. 

From the doorway, Reid said, “Tony has Riley in custody downstairs, Hotch. I think he’s had a psychotic break.”

Gibbs went through several of the dresser drawers until he found some t-shirts. He took 2 of them and dropped them on the floor next to Billy. When the desperate man looked up at him, he put a finger to his lips and whispered “No disturbing the crime scene, Mr. Hinton.” The nurse nodded at him, tore them both into strips, and started gently bandaging the bleeding wrists. 

There was a soft moan from the floor. Billy was pushing his partner’s hair back from his forehead. “It’s okay, Marcus. I promise it’s okay.” 

He leaned forward and kissed the doctor's forehead.

There was a sudden crash downstairs, followed by a surprised yelp that sounded distinctly feminine, and then more thumps. Gibbs started down the stairs in a rush. He found Kate sitting on her butt, looking flustered. Tony had Riley face down on the ground again, yelling at him to stop fighting the cuffs. The prisoner continued to struggle for a while and then seemed to collapse. He shuddered once and then was still. Tony looked up. “Okay, Kate?”

She looked annoyed as she got to her feet. 

Gibbs stopped and said, “So you’ve forgotten how to subdue a suspect since you joined the FBI, DiNozzo?”

Tony looked up at him, his expression hurt a moment until he saw the humor in Gibbs’ eyes. “He doesn’t seem to know when to quit, B-- uh, Gibbs.” Gibbs watched the flush spread on Tony’s face and managed to pretend he didn’t notice the misstep.

Tony leaned over, looking into Riley’s blinking eyes. “So, are you through fighting me?”

There was a small nod. Kate joined him and tried to help the man to his feet, but he stayed limp and their hands on his shoulders slipped. Gibbs started over to help. Trying to avoid dropping him, or grabbing the cuffs, which would have caused unnecessary pain, Tony braced a hand on his back, intending to grab the fabric of his shirt. Instead, Tony let out a startled squawk and pushed away from Riley with both feet, landing on his butt in much the same position that Kate had been in. He shouted, “Jesus Christ, what i _is_ that?”

“What is what?”

Tony had gotten onto his knees and was staring at Riley’s back, his expression confused, with a touch of horror. He reached out and touched the man’s back again. Even from where he was, Gibbs saw the finger and the fabric of the shirt the man was wearing sink into something soft. Riley twitched slightly. 

Tony looked up at Gibbs, his eyes wide, pulling his hand away. “He’s got something on his back. Something… squishy.” He actually shuddered, and then poked at the back again. He started to pull at the collar of the shirt, trying to see what it was, when the he heard Reid shout suddenly, “Tony, get away!”

His immediate reaction was to more or less replicate his first effort to get away, and he landed once more on his butt, his eyes searching for what had alarmed Reid so much. Reid walked into the room slowly, his eyes locked on the man on the floor. He said, “Agent Todd, please get away from him.”

Seeing Kate hesitate, Gibbs barked, “Move it, Todd.”

She scrabbled away from the man. Reid came over to offer Tony a hand up. Gibbs wondered if the man was going to faint. His face was white. Tony, seeing the same thing, put an arm around his waist. 

“What’s up, Spence?” he asked softly. 

Reid didn’t answer. He looked around, saw a set of fireplace tools near the small hearth in the room and grabbed the tongs. 

“What are you doing, Spencer?”

Spencer slipped the tongs under Riley, who was watching him with cold emotionless eyes but did not move. With a twist of the tongs Spencer pulled the shirt partially open, tearing several buttons. Then he used the tongs once more to pull at the collar of the shirt from the back. As the shirt pulled half-way down his back, Riley jerked suddenly, a short gurgling cry exploding from him. Then he was convulsing violently.

The others hardly noticed. They were staring at the thing on his back. It was a thin layer of rubbery looking… something, pale brown that was only a shade or two darker than Riley’s skin, with paler areas that were almost white. An almost translucent extension went up the back of his neck stopping at the hairline. Overall, the thing seemed thicker at the top and bottom, so that there was only a thin membrane holding two parts of it together. There was something about it that reminded Gibbs of Silly Putty, though it wasn’t shiny. And Silly Putty didn’t move on its own. This thing was moving, amoeba-like, sliding off Riley’s convulsing back into the space between the shoulder and the neck, grouping itself into a mass about the size of a small cantaloupe. The two halves were still visible, with the colors of one half shifted somewhat, becoming paler. Within a few moments Riley’s convulsions stopped and the thing had squeezed itself almost completely under Riley’s body. On Riley’s back, bare now, was the same kind of thickened, bruised-looking skin Gibbs had seen on the Riley kid’s back.

Gibbs tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. He was a man who had learned to deal with what adrenaline did, had learned to use it, but now he felt almost in a trance, staring at the thing as it tried to hide, wanting to fight or run so badly that his entire body shook with it, He drew a shaky breath, aware of the near panting breathing of the others in the room.

Kate whispered, “What is that thing?”

Reid took a deep breath and backed even further away, pulling Tony with him. “It’s an alien,” he said, his voice quiet, certain. “I thought that was what was going on, and now we know.”

Gibbs turned and stared at him. “What?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The CDC Zombie thing is real. [No, seriously](http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm).


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deejaymil has been being a great beta.

**Part 3: Acute**

_Acute: In medicine, an illness that is of short duration (compared to a chronic condition), rapidly progressive, and in need of urgent care._

  


 

**Wednesday July 24, 2007**

  


 

Gibbs opened the door of the dancehall, surprised to see that the dawn had gotten started in earnest behind the thick layers of clouds that had begun to come in during the night. The town was eerily quiet and he wondered if it was the size of the town, the earliness of the hour, or the fear that was building in the people who lived here. Still, none of the townspeople knew what had happened to the Rileys. They were just another missing family.

He’d gotten no sleep the night before. The talking had been endless, but he had realized a while ago it had been necessary. They had all been buzzing with adrenaline and having a hard time getting their heads around it. Because it turned out that even actually seeing an alien didn’t help make it real. Only Doctor Reid seemed to simply accept it. The thing had been so… he snorted. Yeah. It was alien and his brain had struggled to identify it, to fit it into the world he knew. Eventually, someone had called it a slug and that had helped. They all knew slugs. It didn’t actually look all that much like a slug, except what Reid had called “the fairly amorphous body plan”. But giving it a name had helped. So had watching it more or less dissolve after it died, just about the time they got it back to the dancehall sealed in Celia Riley’s covered cake platter.

He had to admit that he was kind of proud of how quickly the first Marines arrived in town. Less than three hours after he made that insane call in to SecNav on the FBI’s sat phone, the first contingent arrived, just as it was getting full dark. 

SecNav’s response to the call had frankly floored him. He had explained what had been happening, sent pictures of the thing that had been on Riley’s back and waited. There had been a long silence. Gibbs had had Hotchner and Reid ready to corroborate his story, but after that silence had lasted at least a minute, SecNav had said, “All right, Gibbs. There’ll be a scouting contingent of the 38th MEU in Ashford shortly. The main body will be there first thing tomorrow. You’ll be reporting to Colonel Garza.”

Astonished, Gibbs had said, “You _believe_ me?”

Davenport had chuckled. “I figure either you’re sane and we have a big problem or you’re insane and we’re being given an excuse for a training op.” His tone darkened. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope you’ve just gone crazy, Gibbs.”

“I hope so too, sir. A padded cell sounds kind of cozy right now. If what Dr. Reid thinks is true we… we may be in real trouble.” 

SecNav had sighed. “Yeah. And I get to go try to explain this to POTUS. Hopefully he’s not reading to 1st graders this time. You are no longer my favorite Marine, Gibbs.”

Tony came out of the inn and joined him, bringing coffee. Gibbs smiled at him, nodded his approval. “When Tyler first joined us, Kate said she could tell he had worked for me before because he always brought coffee when he had to tell me something I wasn’t going to like.”

Tony snorted. “He seems like a good guy.”

“He is. It took me a while to acknowledge that, because he wasn’t you, but yeah, he is.” He took a sip of coffee. 

Tony was quiet a moment and then said, “Doc Albert woke up about an hour ago. Spencer was right. The slug riding Riley was in the process of splitting into two. The second one was supposed to go on the Doc. Riley, or at least the slug, said that he needed someone to replace his wife. Apparently the slug on her wasn’t compatable with her and it was getting sick. Riley thought he could overpower an old man long enough to let the thing transfer to him, but the Doc was tougher than he expected. By the time he got him subdued, his wife and that thing on her were both dead. He told the Doc that as long as he had him, he was going to make one for him. It would take a few hours to finish the split and then he said the Doc would be ‘joining us’. Whatever that means.”  
“What I can’t figure out is how Reid knew the minute he saw it. I was still having trouble understanding exactly what I was seeing. I kept thinking about Silly Putty. How did Reid figure out that it was an alien and it was controlling Riley?”

Tony leaned against the railing of the porch. “He’s a genius, Gibbs. Certified, Grade-A genius.” He took a sip of his own coffee. He looked miserable. “He says he knew because of Rossi. He says he knew that Prentiss was telling the truth, but it couldn’t be the truth, so something extraordinary was happening.” Tony sighed. “He quoted the Sherlock Holmes thing about when you have eliminated all the impossibilities, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is the truth.” He shook his head. “Doyle obviously wasn’t a cop, if he thinks eliminating the impossibilities is all that easy.” He sipped his coffee. 

Gibbs watched him, aware that he was nearly wallowing in the presence of the man. God, how had he let this leave his life? He was incredibly stupid. He shook his head. He really needed to get his head back in the game. There was no time for mooning over Dinozzo. Ziva was still out there, probably being controlled by one of these things. The thought of that killed his distraction, brought him back into focus.

“Of course that isn’t all of of it. He went on for a while about epidemiology and the map of the town he had, showing distributions of disappearances. He says we need to check out the area where the fire was, but we need to do it in force so we’ll wait for the Marines.” Tony sighed again, pain running across his face. “He says he doesn’t understand why Prentiss was murdered instead of… ‘converted’ like, like Rossi was.”  
Gibbs suddenly remembered that both Prentiss and Rossi had been friends, teammates, and that that mattered to Dinozzo more than just about anything. He put his hand on Tony’s shoulder and murmured, “I really am sorry about your loss, Tony.”

Tony nodded, turning to look out down the street to where a marine was standing in the intersection. “I resent not having time to mourn her properly, Gibbs. We were newbies together. She had only been with the team a couple of months when I transferred in. She was amazing.” He closed his eyes and bowed his head.

After a long moment of silence, Gibbs added, “And you also have to be worried about Rossi.”

When Tony replied, his voice was hoarse, strained. “He’s been a mentor to me.” He huffed slightly, a pained smile touching his lips. “He made me feel like I was part of something again. He taught me how to cook Salsiccia Con Cima Di Rapa. And now…” Tony turned to look at him. “Now he’s a prisoner of war and an enemy combatant at the same time. And Ziva. God, Gibbs, I can’t even let myself think about Ziva.”

Gibbs started to answer, but the noise he had been hearing for some time finally registered. Helicopters. Lots of them, coming from the south east. Mark Tyler and Tim McGee came out of the building and they all tried to see, but the clouds were low-lying. Gibbs started off the porch. He knew that the first group of Marines who had arrived the night before had spent a good deal of the night clearing an open area on a piece of flat land about half way between the inn and the Riley house. The sound of chainsaws had been continuous for hours. As they got closer to the cleared area, Gibbs announced suddenly, “That’s an Osprey.”

A few moments later the big Marine workhorse dropped below the cloud cover, with its rotors turned up for the vertical landing. A group of at least 20 people exited the Osprey and it took off again, making room for another to land in its place. More marines disembarked. Massive pallets of cargo were lowered gently, dangling beneath huge Chinooks. Cargo was moved with startling efficiency. There were people on the ground now, organizing the new-comers. Crates were being piled up in the trees that surrounded the newly-created dropzone. Another Chinook came in, carrying what looked like a shipping container like those that were used on sea-going merchant ships. The container had a lot of what looked like antennas and satellite dishes on its top. They watched as it maneuvered past the drop zone, setting the container down in the middle of the street not far from the inn. Several Marines jumped to it, disconnecting the cables that it had been dangling from. When they were clear the Osprey moved off and the container was swarmed with people coming from the drop zone.

Gibbs turned away, telling the others, “This is going to be going on for a while.” He went back to the porch, and sat in one of the chairs lined up along the wall. 

“Jeez, how many are coming, Boss?” McGee said, watching the Marines fanning out into the town, each carrying an assault rifle and a heavy-looking backpack. 

Gibbs was watching the townspeople still in residence coming out of their homes along the street. “SecNav said he was sending an entire MEU. That includes infantry, logistics, air support,” he gestured at the smaller helicopters now circling above the town, moving around the much larger Ospreys and Chinooks, “A command element, enough Navy corpsmen to staff an aide station and assorted bells and whistles. Ashford is now the temporary home of a couple of thousand Marines, McGee.”

Tyler said, “Looks like somebody kicked over a fire ant nest.”

 

***

  


Not much more than two hours later, all the federal agents and state police in town, as well as as many of the current inhabitants of Ashford as could be rousted out of their homes and fit into the room, had been herded into the dancehall. There were also a few Marines, most of whom appeared to be company grade officers, though there were some enlisted guarding both doors and a few more were up on the stage, where a microphone had been set up. Gibbs and his agents were sitting off to one side, watching. The BAU was on the other side of the room. He could see Tony talking animatedly to a stiff-backed Marine Captain and had to hold in the chuckle that wanted out.

Beside him McGee said, “He acts like nothing happened.” Gibbs turned to look at him, one eyebrow lifted. McGee insisted, “He acts like he never just walked out on us without a word, with no explanation.”

Kate said, “Maybe he just didn’t think we would want to hear the explanation.” She sounded distracted. 

McGee’s voice stayed hard, “He owes us an explanation.”

At that moment a tall, solid-looking woman in BDUs with a colonel's birds in subdued black on her collar, came in from the outside door, followed by about six others. She walked the length of the room with a steady gait while her retinue made way for her, and then reached up to the hands offered by the men on the stage and was lifted up. She went to the microphone and said, “May I have your attention, please.” The room went silent. Gibbs could not keep the smile off his face. She went on, “I am Colonel Tomasa Garza, commanding officer of the 38th Marine Expeditionary Unit.” There was only the slightest Mexican accent. “We are here to investigate what appears to be an outbreak of a rare virus. The virus can be deadly if not identified early enough and it spreads very easily. The potential loss of life to our country is enormous if we do not succeed in stopping the infection here.

“To those of you in my command, we have trained for this. We’re going to do this by the numbers, but remember, the numbers may change. This is a unique situation and we have to be flexible and ready. For those of you not in my command, I want you to know that your safety is a priority for me and my people. For this reason, this town is being evacuated immediately.” There was a low murmuring near the back, where most of the townspeople had gathered. “Due to the nature of the threat, as we currently understand it, everyone will be assessed for potential infection. Those who have been infected will be moved to hospitals. Those of you who do not appear to be infected will be staying in a secure quarantine location until we are sure you have not been infected. Please cooperate with my Marines and I promise you you will be out of here to comfortable, if not luxurious accommodations, within the next few hours.” She stopped a moment and looked out at the room, her expression grave. “Your property will be protected as well as possible while you are away. I know this is a frightening situation.” She smiled slightly. “It scares the hell out of me. But our job is to protect you and the rest of West Virginia and the country and that is what we will be doing. Thank you. Lt. Colonel Nelson and Captain Janawack will be available to answer questions for the time being.” She looked out across the room again. “I would like Special Agents Gibbs and Hotchner to come with me, please.”

She jumped down from the stage without assistance and walked back towards the door. A grey-haired woman stepped into her path, but before she got anywhere near the colonel, two marines were at her side, each taking an arm. She tried to jerk away from them, then turned back to face the colonel. “This is bullshit,” she screamed. “Are you all crazy? Nobody has been sick. Somebody is stealing us, kidnapping us.” Her eyes flicked to Hotch who had made his way over to the little grouping. “You said you were going to find my son. Now we’ve got all these soldiers here and no one is looking for my John anymore.” She tried to pull loose. “Let me go!”

The colonel said, “Gentlemen, if you would escort Ms. Williams to the infirmary. Let’s make sure she is okay before we see about helping her pack.” Hotch was a little impressed that the woman had studied the situation well enough to remember who John Williams was.

“I’m not going anywhere, you bitch! I’m going to go find my John, since the rest of you don’t seem to be able to do your jobs.”

The colonel nodded her head and the two marines started moving the woman away. Within a few seconds she was screaming, fighting them. The colonel stepped forward, and barked, “Ms. Williams, stop that right now!” in a perfect Marine DI voice. The woman stopped screaming, gulped, stared at her with wide eyes. Then she began to cry. Her two marines started moving her again and this time she went without a fight.

A familiar voice behind Hotch said, “You always did have the knack. Colonel.” 

Colonel Garza looked back and Hotch saw her eyes light up. “Learned from the best, Gunny. You look…” She stopped, looked him over carefully, and continued. “Greyer. Good, but really a lot greyer. Let’s go find out where they put my office. We need to talk.”

 

***

  


The office was in the first of the container-like structures that had been dropped into Ashford. It was tiny, with barely enough room for two folding chairs in front of a smallish metal desk. As the colonel dropped her hat on the desk and rounded it to sit down, Hotch saw Gibbs watching her with a little smile, his eyes shining. He took a moment to look her over himself. She was almost as tall as Gibbs, with a pleasantly attractive face and a solid body that looked a great deal more muscled than your average 45 year old woman. Her black hair was cut short and had a few streaks of grey at the temple. She had calm eyes that were on Gibbs now, and she was smiling. 

“I take it you know each other,” he said.

Still looking at the colonel, Gibbs said, “Colonel Garza was my CO for a while. A grass green Lieutenant who had the sense to use her NCOs the way God intended. We spent some time together pouring sand out of our boots. The years have been kind to you, Colonel.” 

She shook her head, “Not all that kind. I’ve gotten greyer, too.” She patted her stomach. “And it takes a lot more work to keep fit.”

Gibbs snorted. “Tell me about it.” He tilted his head. “I’m proud of you, Tommy. You’ve done good.”

Hotch was amused to see her actually blush, something he had never seen a Marine Colonel do before. 

“Well, I had a lot of help along the way, Gunny.” She leaned back in her chair. “So, I’m going to pretend I think we really have aliens here. But I have to tell you, Gibbs. If you want me to do more than run a particularly realistic training operation here, you’re going to have to show me some aliens.”

Gibbs chuckled. “So SecNav didn’t believe me.”

There was a soft knock at the door. Garza said, “Come.” A young pfc came in carrying three large mugs on a tray. She deposited them on the desk and turned to leave. Garza said, “Thanks, Edwards.” She indicated the mugs to the two men, taking one for herself. 

Gibbs took a sip and gave a happy-looking sigh. “Marine coffee,” he said, sounding very pleased. When Hotch took a sip and winced, Gibbs laughed softly. 

Garza said, “It’s an acquired taste, Agent Hotchner.” She turned back to Gibbs. “No, I’m pretty sure he believes you and even if he’s wrong, we can use the training.”

Hotch said, “You train for alien invasions?”

She nodded, looking at him over the top of her mug. “In the Marines, we train for pretty much everything. In particular, each MEU is in constant training for a specific set of situations. The 38th doesn’t just do alien invasions, but what else we train for is classified.”

Hotch was a little uncomfortable. “Well, I guess I’m glad you do train for it, but I admit I’m surprised.”

She nodded, “Oh, I understand. It’s batshit. But the Corps been mandated to be prepared for pretty much anything that anyone could imagine. That included alien invasions, although… Did you ever hear that the CDC has a detailed set of plans for what to do in the event of a zombie apocalypse?”

Hotch nearly spit out his coffee. “ _What_?”

“Yeah. It’s not pretend. Spent money on it, used the best guys in the country, worked on it for a year or so and they update it regularly. They contend that if you are ready for a zombie apocalypse, you are ready for just about any other kind of epidemic infection.” She smiled slightly. “We’ve taken on that philosophy and we have two MEUs ready to be the front line in case of alien invasions, although we didn’t any more expect actual invasions than the CDC expects zombies. The training we have done can be used for a lot of other things.”

“Like viruses,” Hotch said. He put his coffee down, “Colonel, I understand the impulse to keep this quiet, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to do that.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because we can’t assume that this was the only landing.” He saw no surprise in her eyes. “And we can’t assume that there aren’t at least 11 of them out there, replicating and stealing the bodies of more innocent people. People are going to need to know. We can’t hide it.”

She shrugged. “That decision is way above my pay grade, Special Agent Hotchner, but I would like to point out that terrified people might very well do more damage than the aliens. At least, that is what those who have studied such things tell us.” Garza glanced at Gibbs who did not react. “I’ve read the report you sent to SecNav, but you’ve left out a few things. How many do you think landed and what is your estimate on how many of the aliens have left the immediate area?”

Gibbs said, “I have no idea how many there were to start with and we only know of one, for sure, that has left the area.” Hotch looked over at him in surprise. “The slug that took Justin Riley apparently made a successful transfer to the man he sideswiped on the road. We assume that man continued out of the mountains. There are approximately eleven people missing from Ashford, including an FBI agent and one of my people. We have no idea where they are. We put BOLOs out on everyone, starting when they started disappearing. There have been no hits. We are hoping that that means they haven’t left yet. We know that David Rossi, at least, was hanging around here for a while.” He sighed and wiped his face with both hands. “Frankly, Tommy, I’m worried. These things are pretty good at pretending to be human, and they’re completely ruthless. We’re pretty sure that it was Michelle Anderson who strangled her baby boy, probably because they didn’t bother to feed him and he was making too much noise.” His gaze was intense. “We have to assume that anyone who has been captured is an enemy. It should probably be kill on sight, but I…” He shook his head, thinking of Ziva. “It’s just not that simple. We don’t have a case of someone surviving the removal of the slug. We don’t know if survival is possible. But if it is such people could be of overmastering importance in providing intel.”

Garza said, “We’ve thought about that. As of now my people have been told to treat everyone they meet as a possible combatant, but only a possible combatant. As long as an individual shows no sign of aggression and cooperates, we will try very hard not to kill them. But the safety of my soldiers has to come first, Gibbs. You know that.”

“Yeah, I do. It’s not any different than patrolling a street in Iraq.”

She nodded. There was another knock on the door. When Garza told them to come in another young marine put his head in the door and said, “Sorry to bother you, Colonel, but one of our search squads has found a body. Also, the medical examiner is here.”

Behind him, Gibbs heard the soft Scots accent of his favorite doctor telling a story about the first time he rode on a helicopter. 

 

***

  


The body was Ziva. She was in the woods behind the Riley house. She had been dead for a while.

Ducky had lowered himself to his knees, his gloved hands gentle as he brushed some of the leaves from her face. “Oh, my dear girl. I am so sorry.” He made a quick exam, while Gibbs stood above him, fists clenched but face expressionless. 

“She was your agent, wasn’t she, Gibbs?”

He nodded. “I left her to protect the Rileys when we heard the gunshots that killed Special Agent Prentiss. They sounded close and I wanted her to make sure they wouldn’t get hurt.” 

A hand touched his shoulder. “You had no idea what was going on at the time, Gibbs. It was a sensible thing to do in the circumstances as you knew them.”

“That doesn’t change that I put her there, Tommy.”

Ducky got to his feet and came over. “She put up one hell of a fight, Jethro. And that was after she’d been struck a significant blow on the back of the head.” The old man’s eyes were bright with tears and pride. “I am pretty sure this happened the night she was taken. She forced them to kill her. She never had one of those damned things on her.” Gibbs looked down at her, seeing the busted skin on her knuckles and felt a deep relief join his sorrow and guilt.

 

***

  


One of the “bells and whistles” that the 38th had brought with them was not something Gibbs had expected. They had a complete, if small, mobile hospital, and even more surprising, a fully equipped autopsy suite, ready to be set up for any biohazard level up to Level Four, the level that the Ebola virus rated. Right now, there were no special anti-contamination measures in place, except for one, and that one was in place for every building and tent in the rapidly growing Marine village. 

“I’ll need you to take off your shirt, sir, and turn your back to me. It’s just a precaution.” The kid looked about 12, but his grip on his M16 was firm and knowledgeable and his eyes were hard. Gibbs moved slowly, unbuttoning his shirt as he went. He suddenly wondered if he would know if he had a slug on him. The PFC said, “Thank you, sir,” and opened the door. On the outside the structure looked a lot like the one that housed Tommy’s office, but there were no satellite dishes on the top.

Once inside, he made it to the back, where Ducky and another man, in bluish BDUs and Navy Lt. Commander insignia, were examining the body of Celia Riley. A third man was using a video camera to document the process. She lay on her stomach and the slug was visible, though it looked quite a bit different from the one that had been on Harold Riley when they had used a broom to push it into the cake holder to take back to the dancehall. It was pale now, almost white, with bluish blotches. Along the edge near the bottom it was ragged-looking and had exuded a pale bluish liquid. Even though they had exhaust fans running at full blast, the smell was pretty bad. Ducky was peeling back part of the slug near the top, exhibiting a trio of thin extrusions that came from the slug and were attached to the base of the woman’s skull. Gibbs felt his stomach turn over and told it to shut up and do it’s job. 

“Duck, can I talk to you a minute?” Ducky looked up. “In private?”

Ducky hesitated just a moment and the other man said, “We need to take some stills, sir. You can take a break.”

Ducky thanked him and came toward Gibbs, removing his gloves and putting them in a large biohazard disposal bag near the door. They moved into the front section of the structure where there were a couple of computers and chairs. Ducky said, “What can I do for you, Jethro?” The tone of voice and his eyes told Gibbs he had a suspicion of what Gibbs wanted and was not pleased.

Gibbs said, “What I don’t want is you here. They have people to do this stuff for them. I want you back in DC. It’s too dangerous here.”

Ducky stood straight and looked up into Gibbs eyes, “I am exactly where I want to be right now, Jethro. The people of this country, this world, are in terrible danger and I can help.”

Gibbs rubbed the back of his neck, “Look, Ducky, I don’t want to insult you, but you are—”

“If you are about to mention my age, Jethro, may I suggest that you don’t?” 

There was fire in his old blue eyes. Gibbs remembered all too well what being on Ducky’s bad side was like. He tried once more, “They have people here who have been training for this for years, Ducky, and you—”

Ducky interrupted him again, “And I’m one of them.”

“ _What_?”

“I have worked on training exercises with Colonel Garza’s command for nearly 10 years. I could not, of course, tell you about it, as you didn’t have clearance.” 

Gibbs opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Nothing came out.

Ducky took another step forward, his eyes intense. “You are one of my closest friends, Jethro. You are precious to me and you will be in far greater danger than I while this is going on. I don’t like that, but I would never try to stop you from doing your duty. And I will not let you stop me from doing mine.”

Gibbs couldn’t argue with that no matter how much he wanted to. He sighed. “All right, Ducky. You win.” He started for the door.

“Jethro?” 

He turned. “Yeah, Duck?”

“Is it true that our young Anthony is one of the FBI agents here?” There was pain in his voice.

“Yeah. He’s here.”

“How is he?”

GIbbs met his eyes. “He’s okay. He really is.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


The minute Tony opened the door, the damned dog he had heard barking inside ran out from between his legs and disappeared into the bushes that surrounded the house. Tony cursed and tried to call it, but “Mac” did not respond. Well, he had apparently been in the house since the day before, forgotten during the crisis that had overtaken his two owners, Doctor Albert and “Nurse Billy” as Tony insisted on calling him. Now that the pair was being evacuated, the little mix breed terrier had come back to mind. Billy had insisted he wanted to get the dog, but Tony, seeing an older man barely on his feet with exhaustion and worry, had said, “The Marines aren’t going to let you wander around out there. I’ll get your dog and be right back.”

So now he called, “Come on, Mac. I know you needed to pee, but your people are worried about you. And if you don’t come pretty soon the mean old Marines are going to make them leave without you and nobody wants that.”

The sun was just down, but there was still quite a bit of light. He hunted around the building, looking under bushes and calling. “I’ve got a steak bone for you, Mac!”

Behind the house the ground dropped away pretty steeply into some dense woods. Tony hesitated, but this was the direction the dog had run. He moved a little into the wood, on a path that led through bushes into the trees. The path was distinct and had obviously been used a lot, and after a few minutes he saw why. He came out into a clearing. Beyond the clearing the hill sloped even more steeply and he could see a fantastic view of the mountains. There was even a bench that had been placed in the clearing. He had a sudden image of the doctor and his nurse sitting there, watching the sunsets, together for so many years. Tony felt a pang of envy, but shook it off and called. “Come on Mac. It’s going to break their hearts if I can’t find you.” 

There was a rustle in the leaves a little to the left and downhill. He started down the slope again, careful, not wanting to fall, and came to another shoulder where the land was relatively flat. There was another rustle, but whatever it was sounded too big to be a little dog. Swallowing as his heart-rate increased, he pulled his weapon, eyes fighting the gathering darkness.

Then his eyes caught on a figure in front of him. It moved into a small clearing where what was left of daylight confirmed that it was a human. It continued down the hill, but it was limping.

“FBI! Freeze!” The figure stopped. Something about the shape of the shoulders… _Oh, Jeez_ , Tony thought, unsure if he wanted it to be his missing friend or not. 

“Put your hands on top of your head,” he shouted, moving carefully closer, trying to keep an eye on everything at the same time. He spared a hand and clicked his radio, “Hotch, Gibbs, I’ve got somebody here. Someone running away from me. Need some backup right goddamned now.” 

The figure in front of him turned slowly, hands still at its sides. There was just enough light that Tony could see it was Rossi. He felt his stomach roil. Rossi took another step, now moving toward him.

“I said freeze!” Tony roared, in pure cop-voice. “Do not move or I _will_ shoot you.” Rossi stopped again, but didn’t look like someone accepting capture.

Hotch’s voice in his ear said, “Tony, where exactly are you?”

“I’m about a hundred meters straight down hill from the doctor’s house.” He hesitated. “It’s Rossi, Hotch.”

He heard the intake of a gasp. Then Gibbs’ voice broke through. “I’m closest to you. I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t do anything. Just hold him. And Tony, if he gives you any trouble, you _shoot_ him. Understand me?”

“Yeah, Gibbs. I understand,” he said. Then he said, “Come on, Rossi. You know the drill. Let me see your hands.”

Rossi said, “Sure, Tony. No problem.” He spread his hands away from his body, turning them palm forward. “What’s the fuss about? I’ve been wandering in the woods for two days and I finally make my way back here and this is the is greeting I get?”

He sounded tired and annoyed and amused. He sounded perfectly normal. Tony held on to the image of the thing on the mayor’s back. “Hands on your head,” he said.

Putting his hands on his head, Rossi took another step forward and said, “Damn it, Dinozzo, I’ve got a sprained ankle and I’m tired and hungry. Can you please come help me up the hill?” 

Tony swallowed in a dry throat and said, “Yeah. We’ll help you, Dave. I promise we’ll help you. We just have to wait until Gibbs gets here and—”

In the end, it was because it was Rossi. When Rossi jumped suddenly forward, in spite of Gibbs’ warning, he hesitated just long enough that when he shot him in the chest Rossi already had enough momentum that he was able to make contact, hitting Tony with his full body, eerily silent as Tony shot him again at point blank range as they both went down. 

Tony felt the body on him go limp and strained to roll out from under it. With one knee on Rossi’s left arm and the other knee in the middle of his chest, holding his weapon right in his face, he said, “Oh, damn it, Rossi, I didn’t want to do that.” Above him he heard Gibbs yell, “Tony!”

Rossi’s eyes blinked open. He looked into Tony’s eyes and whispered urgently, “ _Run_ , Tony.” There was a world of fear and regret in his eyes. Then his head snapped back and Tony realized he was convulsing. 

Something touched the side of Tony’s neck, something warm and slippery, almost like the tongue of a dog. He jerked away from it, but it came with him, and his skin pulled as if he had bubblegum stuck to him, stretching.

He pushed back away from the body onto his ass with the ground unsteady under him. He knew that would pass in a moment. Above him he could hear Gibbs shouting. He looked up, saw the light of Gibbs’ flashlight and realized he had very little time. He got to his feet, kicking Rossi’s twisting body away and considered. If they noticed there was no rider on Rossi he’d be in trouble immediately. He wondered if he should either kill or try to capture Gibbs. He was afraid of Gibbs but the man would be a priceless asset. He probably knew more about the plans the Marines had than anyone but the Colonel herself. Even if he had to kill him, it would be better to do that than be chased down the mountain by someone with Gibbs’ experience, especially since he knew that Gibbs wouldn’t hesitate the way Tony had. But if he could get close enough for a transfer… it was worth the risk.

So he waved an arm and shouted, “Over here, Gibbs.” When Gibbs arrived he was stooped with his hands on his knees, one still holding his weapon, panting. He said, “Jesus Christ, Gibbs. He made me shoot him. We have to get someone down here to help,” with his voice sounding high-pitched and broken. He waited . 

Gibbs took two more steps nearer and said, “It’s okay, Tony. You didn’t have any choice.”

He looked up and even in the relative darkness he could see the expression on Gibbs’ face. There were a number of emotions on display, but the primary one was suspicion. He was pretty sure Gibbs wouldn’t come closer, and he could hear more people coming down the hill towards them. He moved, bringing his weapon up and firing. Gibbs went down with a shout. 

He’d run out of time. He moved down the hill as quickly as possible, getting into the trees, hearing Hotch’s and Morgan’s voices calling Tony’s name.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Near-death of a child. Major Character Death. Brutal murders. And in spite of all that, Deejaymil is still betaing this for me.

**Wednesday, July 25–Sunday, August 4, 2007**

 

Gibbs never knew how long he stood there, one hand on the rough bark of a tree, the other hanging limply at his side while blood dripped off his finger tips. It was, he thought later, a long time. 

Around him medics worked on Rossi, while Morgan and several Marines chased after Tony. Hotchner had tried to question him, but he hadn’t responded. No one seemed to notice that he’d been shot. There was enough blood around from the two holes in Rossi to account for any anyone noticed on him.

His mind was blank. 

No, not blank. The surface was blank, staring into the darkness under the trees, but beneath that his mind was racing, seeing the scene, seeing Tony, noticing something odd about his voice, his hesitation and Tony looking up at him, face suddenly empty of anything as he brought the gun up. Tony turning even as he fired and Gibbs seeing the slug riding on his shoulder, slipping beneath his clothes as he started down the hill. He went over it again and again. When he heard one of Hotchner’s people saying that there was no slug on Rossi he thought, _It’s on Tony. I’ve lost Tony. Again. For ever._ But he said nothing as that thought rolled through his head. 

When McGee took his upper arm and tugged gently, he stumbled on knees that had grown stiff. The fire shooting from them up his legs and the deep cold pain from his ribs brought him back enough to let Tim and Kate lead him back up the hill, half carrying him between them, Kate yelling at him for not telling anyone he was hurt and Tyler berating Hotchner for not noticing.

He never did remember actually being taken to the infirmary and being treated. Waking suddenly from a deep sleep he lay blinking up at the spotted tile ceiling. The memory of seeing that thing on Tony crashed into him like a wrecking ball. His body curled around it, a cry of horror and grief exploding out of him. Kate, asleep on a chair nearby, startled. She moved to the edge of the bed, sat there, staring at him with red-rimmed eyes.

“Gibbs.” He didn’t look at her. “Gibbs,” she said again. “I need you to talk to me.”

He still didn’t meet her eyes. His voice, when he spoke, sounded like it belonged to someone else. “Why?”

“Because we need you. Because we need to figure out how to get him back.”

He closed his eyes. The pain from his body was bad, but the pain from his grief was so much worse. “He’s gone, Kate. You’ve seen what happens when those things come off. He’s gone.”

“Maybe,” she admitted. He looked up at her at last. “But I have been trained by a man I admire enormously to never give up, never let go, and never, _ever_ leave a man behind. So we will find him and bring him back and Doctor Reid and Ducky and those other people will figure out how to get that thing off without killing him. We still have hope, Gibbs. Rossi is in critical condition, but he is alive.” 

Hope. Hope was the cruelest of feelings. But he could not simply quit, as much as he wanted to. He could not leave a man behind. He could not leave _Tony_ behind. Even if Tony was gone, he still had his team. They needed him. Even how, he could not abandon them. Not again. Not the way he had after the explosion. If that entire clusterfuck had taught him nothing else, then at least he had learned that. 

But, God, he was so tired. 

There was a long moment of silence, then he swallowed hard and straightened his shoulders. He looked down at himself and realized that he was in hospital clothes, that there were several bandages on his body, including one wrapped tightly around his chest and a thick one on his upper arm. He also realized that his head and his bad knee hurt like hell. He looked around the room. There was a young Marine sitting on a gurney across the small room, getting an ankle wrapped by a medic, but no one else in the room. He saw some of his clean clothes draped across the end of the bed.

He took a deep breath. “Get out of here so I can get dressed. Get everyone together, ready to tell me what we know.”

Kate jumped to her feet and spun for the door. Relief bled into her voice as she said, “On it, Boss.” 

That made him smile a little. She rarely called him “Boss”.

While he dressed with mechanical movements, ignoring all the places on his body that hurt, Gibbs thought about Tony walking around with that thing on him, a slave to it. _I don’t know if you can survive having it taken off, Tony,_ he thought grimly, _but if you can’t, you will at least die a free man. I swear that to you._  
  
  


* * *

  
  
He walked for 2 days, not bothering to stop for anything but water. At first his only direction was down. Down out of the mountains. Eventually he came out on a road that was pretty busy and walked along it keeping inside the edge of the woods. Not long after that he found a sign: Harrisonburg 6 miles.

He decided that he might be far enough away and chose a house after seeing a middle aged man roughly his size and weight, wearing mechanics coveralls, leave his car and go inside with a bag of groceries. He was right behind him, pushing the door open just before it clicked closed. The man turned and he hit him hard. He did not intend to share himself here. It took too many hours to accomplish, he was too close to the mountains and it would be too easy for someone like Garcia to find him. So he killed the man by crushing his skull with a large iron skillet he found in the kitchen, and a little later, when a woman the same age walked in the house he grabbed her, held her hand around the revolver he had found in the house and shot her in the head. He knew they would be watching for deaths and disappearances in the area and hoped that the LEOs who investigated this would think it was a murder/suicide long enough for him to get well clear. 

He went upstairs to change clothes, choosing casual. He looked in the mirror and considered, then decided not to shave. It would be a few days before he could call the hair on his face a beard, but it would help disguise him if they went public with the BOLO that he knew had to be out by now. 

Sitting on the bed, he took off his shoes, and pulled the socks off with no concern for the places where blisters had broken and the fluid within had dried, gluing the socks to raw skin. He examined the damage done by walking so long in dress shoes thoughtfully, recommendations for the best way to treat it, along with a warning about the possibility of infection, crossing his mind, coming from that part of him that wasn’t him. He decided that he wanted this host to last a while and went to the bathroom to find supplies. 

Back in the kitchen, wearing new socks in his old shoes because the mechanic had had enormous feet, he was collecting car keys, getting ready to leave, when the detailed knowledge his host had of what happened to bodies that worked hard without adequate nutrition and water began to filter into him. He looked through the kitchen and found some food he could bring with him. He left, getting into the rather colorless sedan the woman had been driving and drove away.

A day later, in brand new running shoes, and in the third car he had stolen, he looked up at the large sign above the highway: Washington D.C. Next 10 Exits.  
  


* * *

  
  
Garcia was tired and scared and worried and so very sad. Her head ached and her shoulders ached and her soul ached and she kept working, trying to find a trace any of the missing people from Ashford and especially any sign of Tony. The Marine Colonel had come by early this morning and told her they were moving them all “elsewhere” in another hour or two. She had declined to say where the “elsewhere” was.

So Garcia had packed bags for herself and Derek and they were now stacked behind her. Derek had gotten back from trying to find Tony two hours ago, exhausted, bruised and beaten from the falls he’d taken as he tried to follow Tony down the steep slopes. He was upstairs now, showering, so they’d be ready to move. She’d had to tell him that Rossi was in critical condition and that no one had seen Tony. She was finishing up the last of her current set of searches and when Derek got back down from the inn he would help her break down her equipment. She’d heard Hotch step out on the porch a few minutes before to talk to Reid, who had already gone to the new place, where they apparently had medical facilities and where Rossi had also been taken. He was using a sat phone. One of the things the Marines had discovered since their arrival was that all the cells that had been placed along this valley to provide cellular service had been sabotaged, explaining why no one had been able to call in or out since they’d arrived.

She was so ready to get out of here. This place had become a nightmare and at this point she didn’t care where “elsewhere” was as long as it wasn’t here.

“Miss?”

Garcia startled. She had thought she was alone. The voice was small. The girl who had come from somewhere behind her was small. No more than 10, dirty blonde hair and big blue eyes. Garcia stared at her, a little shocked. The girl was wearing a cute pink t-shirt with My Little Ponies and quite a bit of dirt on it and dark green jeans. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek that had tear tracks running down it. She was not crying now, but she looked scared.

“Hey, Honey,” Garcia said gently. “You shouldn’t be here.” She was puzzled. She had thought all the local citizens had been removed from town. She stretched out a hand, beckoning to the child and said, “Where are your mom and dad?”

“I don’t know.” The little girl whispered, coming to her quickly. Garcia leaned over, taking the girl’s hand, hoping that her parents were not some of the “disappeared,” hoping they’d just been separated during the chaos when the Marines had been moving everyone out of town. “I woke up and they were gone.” She got closer and started to cry. Garcia opened her arms and the girl leaned into them.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll take care of you until we can find them.” She hugged the girl gently. Then she felt a hard jerk in the little body. Something touched her neck.

 

***

  


Morgan came into the dancehall following a Navy corpsman carrying a huge medical bag who had run in the door ahead of him. He saw group of people, including Hotch, clustered around the back of the room. The table that had been Pen’s domain for the past few days had been pushed aside and tipped over. The computers and other equipment on it were spread across the floor. He felt shock echoing through him. For a second he just froze. Then someone in the crowd moved and he could see dark purple, there on the floor between the crouching and kneeling people; the dark purple skirt Pen had been wearing when he’d come in earlier. 

He never remembered moving. The next thing he knew, Hotch had gotten between him and Penny and was saying something. He didn’t understand, could not understand. He could see now that she was seizing violently, her limbs thrashing, her eyes rolled so far back that there was hardly anything but the whites to be seen. She was making a horrible grunting, gurgling noise with each panting breath, expelled through her clenched teeth, that he could hear clearly through the oxygen mask someone was holding over her mouth and nose. He was vaguely aware that there were others around, splashes of color his brain didn’t bother to interpret, movement. He pushed forward.

“Derek!”

Morgan yelled, “Get out of my way,” struggling to get around Hotch’s surprisingly strong arms.

“Derek, listen to me. They are taking care of her. Let them do their jobs.”

Somehow that made it into the chaos. He turned to his boss and ground out, “What the hell happened?”

Before Hotch could answer, someone said, “I think it’s dead,” and Derek turned back, heart stopping. But the man who had said that was a Marine who was using a broom to poke at something on the floor. A ball? No, it was too soft, and the bristles of the broom were changing its shape where it touched.

Another voice said, “Don’t be stupid, Atwood. We don’t make that assessment. Put it in that container. And for fuck’s sake be careful. You don’t want to end up like that FBI guy.”

“Okay. That’s it. Just hang in there, ma’am.” The voice was quiet, almost gentle. Derek realized it came from one of the people kneeling next to Penny. Her seizure was abating.

It was only then that he realized something else was going on. A few feet from Penny there was another cluster of people surrounding a little girl. As he watched, someone was putting a tube down the small throat, attaching an ambu bag and squeezing gently. One of the people near the girl said, “Status on the lady?”

One of the men near Penny looked up. “Looks like the lorazepam is working. She’s coming out of it. And we’ve got a line in.”

“Good,” the man said as he was bent over the child, listening to her lungs with a stethoscope. “But keep the phenytoin handy, just in case.”

Derek looked back at Penny. Her eyes were closed now, and only a few small ripples ran through her muscles.

Derek watched helplessly while they worked on her. As near as he could see the seizure stopped after a few minutes. There was talk of transportation. Hotch said, “Can Agent Morgan go with her?”

The man wearing a naval officer uniform looked up. “She’s going to be asleep for a while, Agent. She won’t be able to tell you anything.”

Derek said, “I’m her husband. Please let me be with her.”

So Derek took another helicopter ride holding his Penny’s hand. This time it was he who clutched tightly at their joined hands. He kept his mouth near her ear and whispered, “Come on, Baby Girl. Don’t leave me. Stay here with me. Please, Pen, don’t go.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“What the hell are you doing, Tommy?”

She looked up as Gibbs slammed the door behind him. He looked bad, his face pale, his eyes red. He looked like he had aged 10 years over night. She knew he had been wounded, but had been assured that the gunshot wound had been superficial, caused by a bit of bullet jacket that had splintered from the round when it hit his vest and had cut across his upper left arm. Ten stitches, they said, and a badly bruised rib. 

But the man in front of her now was not the man she had talked to yesterday. There was a wild look in his eyes. She could never have imagined the Gunny this near to being out of control.

“Gibbs…”

“Don’t ‘Gibbs’ me, Colonel. I want to talk to my forensics tech. I want her given access to everything. I need her--”

“No, Gibbs. I am under orders to keep everything need to know and your forensics tech does not need to know.”

He slammed his fists down on her desk, leaning forward until he was only a few inches from her. He shouted, “The hell she doesn’t. Now you get on the horn and tell your communications people--” 

The door behind him slammed open and two men with their sidearms drawn and pointed at him came into the room. He turned back to face her, his eyes boring into hers. She lifted her chin and said, “Stand down, gentlemen. Agent Gibbs and I are having a discussion.”

One of the men, still staring at Gibbs, said, “It sounded a little too loud for a discussion, ma’am.”

She shook her head, “The sound insulation in here isn’t the best. It is an intense discussion. That’s all it is. I appreciate your readiness, but I don’t need you right now.” She met eyes with each of them and they holstered their firearms and backed out of the room.

Gibbs had sunk down into one of the chairs. He was staring at the wall behind her. To her astonishment he looked like he was on the verge of tears. She said softly, “We have people who are very good who are looking for him. We will find him.”

“They don’t know him. Abby knows him.”

“Yes, but it is not him that we are really looking for, is it?” She saw his shoulders slump. She said, “Gunny, I’ve seen you lose people before. People you knew pretty well, people who were your responsibility. That’s never fun, but you never reacted like this. Why are you so upset about an FBI agent?”

He was still staring at the wall, taking deep breaths. “Before he was FBI he was one of mine.” 

“And?”

“And I fucked up and hurt him and he left.” He dropped his face into his hands. His voice was almost a whisper, hard to understand. “And I can’t stand the thought of him being used like a marionette by one of those things.”

After few moments, when he didn’t say anything else, she sighed. “I can’t allow Ms. Sciuto access, Gibbs. Look, I know the FBI has one of their technical experts here. She’s read in because she was here. Go talk to her, see if she can help. But Gibbs, don’t try to contact anyone at the Navy Yard. Right now, not even your Director knows what is going on here.” She paused. “Did you hear about Rossi’s suicide?” 

He looked up. “I don’t blame him.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Hotch was sitting on the chair next to Rossi’s body. The rest of the team was lined up along the wall behind him. They had said very little. He thought they were probably as numb with grief and horror as he was.

Rossi had been in bad shape when they’d brought him in here. Two bullet wounds, one to the chest and the other the abdomen and a broken ankle that he had apparently been walking on. There were a lot of bruises as well. He’d clearly been in some kind of fight. The surgeon the Marines had brought with them had repaired the damage and gotten him stabilized, but they’d been told that they would not be moving Rossi to a civilian hospital any time soon. They were also told that it did not look like Rossi had eaten the entire time he was gone and that starvation, his age, the blood loss, and some fairly bizarre results from liver function and blood chemistry tests did not make them very hopeful for his recovery. They also said they might have to amputate his foot due to the damage done by walking on the broken bone.

Rossi’d woken up about 12 hours later, but had said very little. They asked what he remembered, and he had said, “Everything,” then closed his eyes. They tried to get him to tell them what he knew, but he had just shaken his head at each question and his doctor had stopped the interrogation because his heart rate had increased to dangerous levels.

So they’d let him sleep. Most of the time, some one of the team was with him, but the next day the doctors had insisted they needed to do some testing and had chased Hotch out of the room. He’d gone to eat and to find out how the search for Tony was going. When he returned he found them trying to restart Rossi’s heart, with the bed and floor splattered with blood. They’d pushed him out. It was not until after Rossi was declared dead, that the doctor showed him where he had ripped the IV lines out of both of his arms as well as the central line above his clavicle in a way that had split the veins they were in. They had discovered what he had done only after he had lost too much blood to survive, given his condition. The doctor also showed him the wall beside the bed where Rossi had written, _Tell Tony I’m sorry_ , in his blood.

Now he sat with the remainder of his team, wondering if he could possibly put it back together after this. Wondering if they would find Tony and if he could be saved, as Rossi had not. Wondering if it would matter in a world grown so much more dangerous.  
  


* * *

  
  
The next week was a painful, desperate nightmare. John Williams had been found dead in a house that had belonged to a recluse who lived up on the mountain above the town. There was no slug on him, but the evidence that he had carried one was plain on his back. The recluse was nearby, dead of a gunshot wound to the head. The fact that the recluse had been fine when the town was searched after Rossi’s disappearance and that the missing state police officer had been tasked with checking on him after Officer David had disappeared suggested what had happened. The state trooper had reported the old man was fine and there was no sign of either Rossi or David. He’d gone off duty and had never made it home to his family. 

They’d caught 14 slugs, most on people living in the town that had not been suspected. Those had all been in the woods around the town. It became clear that when the Marines arrived most of those still pretending to be normal in town had tried to get away. All the roads were closed and the mountains were difficult terrain for most of them. The Marines had swept them up in their ever-expanding patrols. 

Most had forced their captors to kill them. A few were badly injured, and died when the slug was removed. All the slugs they’d captured had died within ten minutes or so after they had been removed from their hosts. 

There had been one found on a Marine. That had caused some serious paranoia. The Marines had been ordered to stay in groups of at least 2 even in the head, but the tension had abated only a little. The insistence on people baring their backs at regular and, in fact, irregular intervals, was actually increasing problems almost as fast as it eased fears. Finally, they had been told to go shirtless when not actively on patrol in the forest. Some of the women had been a little uptight about that, understandably, but in her announcement the Colonel had been wearing only a sports bra above the waist and had pointedly turned her back to them before beginning her announcements. She had also made it clear what would happen to anyone who took advantage of the situation. Even jokes about the lack of clothing were forbidden. Any kind of reference, including appreciative remarks, would lead to non-judicial punishments and possibly even a court martial. 

Most of her troops had been dealing with the situation with remarkable calm. They’d even taken to putting their rank on their upper arms with black sharpies. The Colonel had let the best artist in the command company put eagles on her. She knew the value of team building.

Most of the federal agents had been moved to the place where the refugees from town had been taken, to help control the intensely unhappy people of Ashford, who had not liked being put into a tent village deep in the woods of a National Park. 

Hotch and his team were still in town, helping with the search for those slug-ridden people who had escaped to the woods. Gibbs and his team had been working with the Marines who had put on civilian clothes and were driving civilian cars around towns in an expanding grid, looking for faces of people they had pictures of. They had found both of the Andersons in Winchester, Virginia, and in spite of the bloody shootout that had ended with the deaths of both Andersons and a young Marine lieutenant, the fact that they had been found had encouraged the searchers, and let them hope they could find the others before they had stolen the bodies of any more innocents. 

They checked out every report of car theft and any murders or missing people that Garcia sent to them. They’d found one couple in Harrisonburg, originally thought to be a murder/suicide that they had decided had been the slug on Tony. The simple brutality of the murders had been a clue, but the missing car that the woman normally drove had been the factor that had caused Garcia to flag the incident. They found the suit Tony’d been wearing in a bedroom, covered with blood and torn to shreds. There was also a pair of very worn socks stiff with sweat and some other fluid. Gibbs had looked at them and said it looked like there had been some blisters that had ruptured. They found the paper covers of bandaids littered over the floor and bed in one room, along with a tube of Neosporin. Later, DNA from the the scene confirmed it had been Tony’s body that had murdered the couple. They had found the stolen car in Hagerstown but had not found another stolen car nearby. 

“I’m surprised it hasn’t transferred to another person by now,” Mark Tyler remarked the morning of the eighth day after Tony had shot Gibbs. When the other members of his team glared at him, he said, “Look, it is clear that the things can get some information from their hosts, or they wouldn’t be so good at hiding. And Dinozzo would know that we are looking for him and he would know exactly what tools we have available to find him.”

“We just might not have found Tony’s body yet,” Kate said quietly.

“Maybe, but why kill those people in Harrisonburg if it didn’t intend to stay with Dinozzo?”

“It might have some particular purpose with Tony,” McGee said slowly. “I mean, Tony knows so many people, and most of them wouldn’t realize anything was wrong.”

There was a faint sound behind them, just outside the door. They glanced at it, but there was no one there.

 

***

  


Gibbs took off his shirt before he walked into the anteroom to Garza’s office. He didn’t want to get killed. He saw the door to her office was closed and turned to her admin. “I need to talk to the Colonel. Right now.”

“She’s in a meeting, sir.” 

He turned and opened the door, ignoring the protests behind him. There was a Lt. Colonel and two captains in the room, standing at parade rest, with their bare backs facing the door. Garza looked past them as they turned towards him and sighed when she saw Gibbs. “I’ll be through here in a minute, Gibbs.”

He shook his head. “We need to talk right now. Right _now_.”  
  


* * *

  
  
He’d been watching the Navy Yard for days, waiting for his chance. There was no sign of extra security, which puzzled him. Perhaps the instinct for secrecy had been taken to a ridiculous extreme. It was possible that he could just walk up, show his ID and walk in. 

He couldn’t take that chance. He’d tried to follow Abby home, preferring to do this in the privacy of her apartment, but she’d gone to the convent every night and he’d heard some of the nuns talking about a sister who was ill. So he decided to take the risk of approaching her at the lab. 

It turned out that getting into the Navy Yard involved climbing and making a jump that his host was sure he couldn’t make and he arrived at NCIS headquarters only slightly bruised and missing a bit of skin on his palms. He went through the door at the evidence garage, amazed that his security code still worked. From there, Abby’s lab was just down the hall.

The music was blaring as usual and she didn’t notice him come in the door, close, and lock it. It was going to be an enormous relief to get rid of the spawn he had created. Having another on the same host was miserably uncomfortable, which was why they only made one just before they were going to be used. With the smaller version of himself in his hand he walked quietly toward his prey. 

Within him, he felt his host fighting with insane ferocity to stop him. He had had little trouble with Tony after he had shot Gibbs. That action had seemed to take the fight out of the host, not that there was ever a moment when he wasn’t in complete control. But now he could actually feel some hesitation. He smiled. It was time to teach his host just how helpless he was. He called out, “Hey, Abs.”

She turned, eyes wide with surprise. Her hand went to the music remote and turned it off. “Tony,” she said, her eyes searching his. 

“What, I don’t get a hug?” he asked.

She smiled, her hand coming out from behind her back. The taser fired before he’d even recognized it. His legs went out from under him as pain screamed through him and blackness threatened. The last thing he saw as the blackness closed in was Abby, leaning over him. 

“Not yet, Tony. But as soon as I can.”

 

***

  


They sedated the hell out of Tony before he even stopped twitching. When they rolled him over to put him on his side on the gurney, the almost translucent part of the slug that reached up his neck to the base of his skull was visible and Gibbs found himself with an armload of Abby. Abby was shaking and her eyes were wet, but she wasn’t actually crying. She watched the slug Tony had had in his hand where it lay on the floor, pseudopods extending from it at intervals, searching. One of the Marines got a container and used a broom to roll it inside and closed the lid carefully. 

When they were finished strapping Tony in and were getting ready to leave, she pulled away and looked Gibbs in the eye. “Tony was going to put that thing on me.”

Gibbs shook his head. “No. The slug was going to do it. Don’t get confused, Abs. You know that Tony would literally die to prevent you from being hurt. It wasn’t Tony who came here.”

“But why me? Out of all the people he— it could choose, why _me_?” 

Gibbs sighed. The sergeant in charge of the Marines said, “We need to go, sir.” 

He nodded, then looked into Abby’s eyes. “If I was going to try to take over a world without letting anyone notice, I would consider you a priceless asset, Abby. It was a smart move. And I almost blew it. I didn’t consider that you were under a threat because in the back of my mind I was thinking of it as if it were Tony and Tony would never involve you in this. But it’s not Tony. It’s using Tony as transportation and a source of information, but it is not Tony. When I thought about that, I knew that you were in danger.” He wiped a tear from her cheek. “And I knew you were brave enough to be the bait.” 

In a tiny little voice, she said, “Are they going to be able to get it off without hurting him?”

He pulled her tight and whispered, “I don’t know, Abs. They’ll try.” Then he stepped back, hands still on her shoulders and said, “You had the security feeds turned off in here?” She nodded. “You packed a bag?”

She nodded again. “I just have to get Bert.”

He smiled. “Then I want you to go with this sergeant. He’ll get you to the copter. Since you had to be read in, the Colonel wants to make use of your skills.”

Abby smiled rather shyly at the sergeant, who was waiting at the door in parade rest. “You’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but I have to see the Director first. Tell her she will have to do without you for a while.”

“She still doesn’t know?” He shook his head. “Wow. I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. She’s going to be pissed.” She tilted her head. “And you know, I don’t really blame her. Do you know they sent a guy down here last week and told me I had to stop trying to find you guys or I was going to jail?”

He was guiding her over to the waiting Marine. “Yeah. I know. And I don’t really blame her, either. Go on now, Abs. Where you are going is one of the safest places on this side of the continent. I want you there as soon as possible.”

 

***

“Construction began here in 1947. For a long time it had no name. It was just called The Facility. It was originally intended to shelter Congress and their families in the event of a nuclear attack on the U.S.” The man, who had introduced himself as Charles Ingram, was in civilian clothes but carried himself like a Marine in spite of the prosthetic that replaced his lower left leg. “There were similar facilities near most of the larger cities and state capitols though those were much smaller. The idea was to save as much of the government as possible, including state governments.” They turned a corner and continued down a gently sloping corridor. “They stopped upgrading this place in the late 70s and it was shut down in 1994, because what with the implosion of the Soviet Union it was felt that the chance that we would need it wasn’t worth what it was costing.”

Abby said, “Then 9/11 happened.”

He glanced at her. “Exactly. It is no longer intended as a shelter, though there is still room for more than a thousand people to stay here if necessary. It is now a Secure Emergency Response Center, a SERC, intended to house the computers and other equipment as well as the planners and technicians and in some cases the military troops needed to deal with things like… Well, like 9/11. Or a major natural disaster. Or an epidemic of a serious disease. Or the invasion of hostile aliens. The whole fight against them will be run from here. There was considerable thought put into making this place safe and those procedures have been tweaked to match the current threat, so once inside these doors, you can be pretty sure that no one you meet will be carrying a slug.”

He stopped at a door at the end of the corridor and bent to let a light scan his retina. He then input a long series of numbers into the keypad and the door opened. Inside was a relatively small room with four Marines each with a baton in one hand and a taser in the other.

Their guide said, “Please turn your backs to those men and remove the clothing on your upper body. You may keep your bra on, Ms. Sciuto.” One of the other men picked up their bags, put them on a table and started opening them.

Gibbs was already getting used to this. Abby looked a little freaked out, but when he started unbuttoning his shirt and nodded to the question in her eyes, she began to gamely remove the first layer of her multi-layered blouse. He was looking forward to their reaction to Bert. In times like these, you had to take your amusements where you found them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deejaymil keeps me from leaving in all the mistakes.

**Monday, August 5-Tuesday, August 6, 2007**

 

He’d watch her while she slept. More than 10 hours. He’d sat hunched in a chair that was clearly meant to encourage short visits and he watched. Every time someone came in the room he had to force himself to not reach for his weapon, which he wasn’t even carrying. He’s been told this place was safe. He was willing to believe it. He just didn’t, quite.

As he’d sat, he’d considered. He’d liked her the moment they met. They’d had a cheerful, playful friendship for quite a while. He’d loved her, as a friend. It had been good.

Then that bastard shot her. He’d taken her out on a date and at the end instead of kissing her, he’d shot her, and Derek hadn’t even known about until she was already out of surgery because he’d been in a church on one of his periodic attempts to believe in God again. He still didn’t know, now, if he believed, but if God existed, Derek had decided he wanted nothing to do with him. He’d still felt that way, watching his Penny sleep.

The only good thing about Garcia getting shot was that the shock of it had busted open the carefully placed walls in his heart where he’d stored his real feelings for her. He submitted to those feelings immediately, but he studied human beings for a living and was not all that much of a fool and he knew that nearly losing a close friend could lead to mistakes. Basic rule: Don’t make major changes in your life when you’ve been traumatized. It went for him and it went for her and he kept his mouth shut for nearly 6 months.

Then one night he didn’t and she had taken him to her bed and let the love she felt for him out to play. And, oh… 

Thinking of their first night sent tears to his eyes, but they were tears of joy. Even there, for all those impossibly long hours, terrified of what that monster had done to her, he could still feel that joy. 

So when she opened her eyes and saw him and smiled, he could smile back and thank the God he’d decided he hated. Well, maybe not quite so much now.

That had been days ago. Pen didn’t remember much about what had happened. She said she had realized in one of those “oh, shit” moments that she should have kept the child at a distance. She’d felt the touch of the slug on her neck and she’d tried to pull away, but had been frozen, unable to move as the little girl collapsed in front of her. There was a painful and panicked moment as the pain that started when it touched the back of her head got worse and worse and then there had been nothing. The doctors told them that the slug had successfully punctured her skull, but that very shortly after that it apparently retracted the little punches it used for that and had fallen off Garcia and died before Hotch had found her convulsing on the floor. 

The doctors were very interested in knowing why the slug had died. They had nearly exsanguinated her trying to find out. After a few days they apparently decided they had enough blood and other tissues and she had gone back to work. The first couple of days Derek was by her side as she learned the new system at the SERC and taught the system what she knew. 

They were all living at the SERC now, but both the BAU and the MCRT were flown back to Ashford and environs every morning along with huge numbers of marines, all searching for enthralled victims and especially for Tony, who was still missing. And Derek had been going with them for almost a week now.

Until this morning, on his required one day of rest a week, when Derek Morgan woke up from a deep sleep by Penny telling him they’d caught Tony.  
  


* * *

  
  
When they first came into the room, Gibbs had asked why Tony's face and neck were swollen. The doctor had explained it was a side effect of the induced coma and not to worry about that. Ducky was reading the chart from the end of Tony’s bed. He made a soft _tsk_ sound, his face drawn. Gibbs started to ask, then decided to wait.

When Ducky finished reading, he sighed deeply, his old lips trembling a little. Closing the chart and putting it back on the end of the bed, he cleared his throat.

“It looks as if our dear Anthony will recover, physically. He has a large number of cuts and scratches that look as if they were acquired while he was traveling through the mountains, many of which are infected. He seems to have routinely gone through bushes instead of around them. Bruising suggests that he fell frequently during that period. His feet are a mess. He continued to walk on them after blisters developed. Many have ulcerated rather badly, but the shoes he was wearing when he was captured were much better adapted to walking so he at least stopped making the damage worse in recent days. They are infected as well, but not very badly.” He stopped, staring for a moment at Tony’s swollen face. “His blood work shows a big increase in the levels of ketone bodies and fatty acids.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he was starving. When a body has used up most of its available glucose, it starts producing ketone bodies which can be metabolised by the liver into glucose. He probably ate no more than once or twice in the past ten days. He was losing muscle mass, because the body gets what it needs to make more glucose to feed the brain from proteins and it gets those proteins from muscle, in a process delightfully referred to as autophagy.” He looked up at Gibbs. “Which means to eat yourself. If this had continued much longer the wasting of muscle mass would have been much faster, and much worse. One of the common causes of death in starvation is the failure of the diaphragm. It is a very thin muscle and the wasting weakens it profoundly. The victim suffocates because their diaphragm no longer functions and they cannot breathe.”

“Ducky.”

“I’m sorry, my boy. There is in this case no need to fret. They are feeding him glucose now and are working to get his electrolytes back in balance. He’ll regain the muscle he’s lost. The scratches and bruises and his feet will heal.” Ducky sighed. “Which just leaves psychological issues.” He was meeting Gibbs’ eyes now, his face an odd mixture of stern and compassionate. “Jethro, Anthony’s recovery will be a delicate process, especially at first. I have been assured that Special Agent Rossi was the most stable of men, psychologically. But he could not bear the fact that his body shot and killed a teammate and dear friend. We strongly suspect that he acquired his broken ankle from Ziva, so we believe he would consider himself at least partially responsible for that, even if he didn’t actually crush her skull himself. And then he used his friendship with Anthony, which I understand had developed into a relationship that was important to both men, to lure him close enough to allow the slug to transfer to Anthony. He, of all people, knew what Anthony was experiencing under the thrall of that monster. His suicide was a surprise, but hindsight tells us it shouldn’t have been.

“We do not know what the slug made Anthony do in the past ten days, other than shoot you in the chest and try to put a slug on Abby, but we can assume it was bad. We are going to need help to get our Anthony past this horrific event in his life.” 

Gibbs nodded. “We’ll help him, Duck.”

“What is _he_ doing in here?” Both men turned. Special Agent Jareau was standing in the doorway, her mouth grim, her blue eyes hard and sharp. She turned them from Gibbs to Ducky. “Are you one of the doctors who wants to keep that thing on him to ‘study’ it?”

Ducky’s mouth fell open. “What? No, no, my dear. That is the last thing I want.”

“Then why haven’t you taken it off?” Agent Hotchner asked from behind her. 

More people were coming in the room, including Kate and his team and the remaining members of the BAU. It looked like the entire waiting room had emptied out. Ducky took a step to place himself between them and the bed Tony lay on.

“What’s with that glass panel?” Morgan asked pointing to the panes of glass secured to a stand that was placed on each side of Tony, near his head and shoulders.

“Everybody shut up.” Gibbs hadn’t even raised his voice, but Colonel Garza had, as she said, learned from the best. There was a moment of complete silence.

“Thank you, Jethro. Ladies and gentlemen, please come with me. We’ll let Anthony rest, and I’ll tell you what I know.”

 

***

  


“Now,” Ducky said, “I am Doctor Donald Mallard, the Medical Examiner for NCIS at the Navy Yard and Chief of Medicine at this SERC. You may call me Ducky. I know everyone in this room is concerned about Anthony, and rightly so. You need to know a few things so that you will understand why we are doing things the way we are. Please take seats.” He waited while they distributed themselves around the conference table, noting that the BAU was on one side of the table and MCRT was on the other. Just as he was about to speak, Abigail and Penelope came through the door, both talking at the same time.

They both stopped, aware of the not entirely welcoming stares, glanced at each other and shrugged. Abby went to a seat nearest Ducky on the BAU side and the other woman went to equivalent seat on the MCRT side and sat, each returning the stares they were getting from their own teammates with bland expressions. 

All of a sudden, Derek Morgan started laughing. It began as a chuckle and turned into a full on laugh. “Oh, Baby Girl, I do love you so.”

That started some chuckles and the tension in the room began to bleed out. Even Gibbs and Hotchner seemed to relax a little. Abby turned her gaze down the side she was sitting and said, “I’m Abby Sciuto and I love Tony.” Then she looked across the table and said to her team, “This is Penelope Garcia. She is really cool and she loves Tony, too.” She looked around the room. “We all love Tony.” She glanced at Mark Tyler. “Well, you don’t love him, Mark, because you just met him, but you will love him when you get to know him.” She stopped, seemed to shake herself, and went on. “We’ve all lost people, and we are all hurting, but we all love Tony and now we have to work together to help Tony and kill those evil things.”

There was a long moment of silence, then Ducky cleared his throat. “Thank you, Abigail.” He made a little bow. Then he turned to face them all. “At a recent meeting both Colonel Garza and I insisted that within the group of us who have been read in on what is happening here, there should be no secrecy. No compartmentalization. We who are fighting this war need to know everything. Fortunately, the President agreed. Therefore, nothing will be kept from you in the future. All reports that have been written will be available to you and I strongly recommend that you read them all. 

“Most of those in charge still feel that letting the public know what is going on would lead to more damage than keeping the secret will. They feel that in the chaos that such an announcement would cause we would be less able to hunt down the slugs. As long as the number of slugs is relatively small, as we believe they are, I agree with this assessment. Plans are being developed to deal with the situation as it stands now and each of you will be an important part of those plans.” He paused a moment. “Now, concerning our dear Anthony.” He repeated what he had told Gibbs, watching the reactions. Each in their own way was appalled and angry. He didn’t blame them. 

“I should mention that Special Agent Rossi had also been starved and forced to walk on a damaged leg. From this and the autopsies we have completed so far, it seems clear that the slugs are poor caretakers of their hosts. They apparently do not feel pain experienced by their hosts and can’t be bothered to so much as avoid being scratched or hurt in other ways as long as the host remains of use to them. When the host is no longer of use, they move to a new host. This apparently seems less trouble than bothering to feed them. When leaving the old host they induce the production of massive amounts of a cocktail of chemicals, including insulin, erythropoietin, and a number of other naturally occurring hormones and other chemicals in the bodies of their hosts. The resulting disruptions of many different biochemical systems in the body causes convulsions, failure of normal cell activities, and death. They also do this if there is an attempt to physically remove them from a host and in such cases, they also do additional physical damage to the brain stem of the host.”

There was a long painful silence. 

Finally, Abby said, “So how are you going to get it off?”

Ducky sighed. “First we need to know if the slug is sedated along with Anthony. If it is, we will remove it. If it is not… we’re not sure. We have a couple of ideas, but each is a definite risk.”

“What about the guy that said we should leave it on him to study it in it’s ‘natural condition’?” JJ said. 

Ducky’s expression darkened. “That will not be happening.”

 

***

  


In the end they got it off because of the quick reflexes of Jethro Gibbs. 

They had put together a dummy that was more or less human shaped, at least the shoulders and head. They fixed the dummy so that it was 98.6 degrees hot and was producing carbon dioxide gas at approximately human levels. They put it on the end of a stick and waved it around near the unconscious Tony Dinozzo. A pseudopod struck the dummy twice before the slug figured out it wasn’t a human and stopped trying. 

Then they went back to the drawing board, getting ready to finalize plans. Ducky looked exhausted and miserable and when Gibbs said something snarky about experimenting on Tony he spun around, his face twisted in rage, and snarled, “Then _you_ tell me what to do, Jethro. I assume you have a better plan?”

Gibbs actually flinched. It was so surprising that it snapped Ducky out of his rage. Then Gibbs did something else that he had rarely done in Ducky’s presence. He said, “I’m sorry, Duck,” and his tone of voice made it very clear that he really was. 

Ducky patted him on the arm. “As am I, Jethro. I am sorry this horrible situation has formed around us. It is a little wearing on the temper.”

Gibbs said, “I trust you, Ducky. I trust you with my life and I trust you with Tony’s. Do what you need to do. I know that whatever happens, you’ll have done your best.” He hesitated. “Just one thing.”

Ducky raised an eyebrow.

“If it looks like whatever you do isn’t working, take the damned thing off before he dies. I promised him that at the very least he would die free.”

Ducky’s head dropped. For a moment there was silence, then Ducky said, “Yes. I can promise you that.” He brought his head up and said, “Do you want to be there?”

“Yeah.” Because he figured it was the least he could do. 

The next thing they tried was to hit it with electric shock again, because they were fairly sure that it had been incapacitated for a while after Abby had tasered it. At a level about half that of the taser, they shocked the slug directly. It shook with spasms for a while, then seemed to hunch up. Several short pseudopods waved spastically. They hit it again and for a brief second the entire slug balled up and Gibbs, without even really thinking, grabbed the thing with his bare hand and threw it against the wall behind him. 

Ducky and the other medical people went into a frenzy. An absurdly young corpsman scooped the slug up with what looked for all the world like a pooperscooper, dropped it into a plastic box and ran from the room, accompanied by at least one doctor and several other corpsmen. 

When he had insured that Tony appeared to have survived the procedure, Ducky turned to Gibbs and said, “That was probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, Jethro. And that makes it epically stupid. We don’t know exactly what happens when they attach to a new host, and we certainly don’t know that it couldn’t have gained control of you from the skin of your hand.”

Gibbs’ eyes were on Tony. “I saw it withdraw from his skull. I took a chance before it could recover and reattach.” 

Ducky sighed. “Oh, Jethro.”

“So are you going to wake Tony up now?”

“Not just yet. We are currently reading his therapist into what has happened to him. We do not want to wake him until she is ready.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Special Agent Gibbs, I am Dr. Harriet McKnight.”

Gibbs shook the offered hand. She was very short, very black, and middle aged. Her accent was Texan, her clothes bright but comfortable-looking. Her hair was cut into a short even cap all over her head and had individual grey hairs mixed more or less evenly over it all. Her brown eyes seemed to catalog his face. 

“You’re the doc that’s supposed to be a miracle worker with trauma patients.”

She smiled a little as she sat in the chair across from him. “I’m curious where you heard that. Most of my work is pretty seriously classified.”

Gibbs tilted his head to one side, lips in the shape of a small smile. “I’m an investigator. I have really good ears and this place is pretty small.”

She nodded. She didn’t seem to actually care. “Well, in any case, I have been working with several of the doctors here, especially Dr. Mallard. It was Dr. Reid who suggested they bring me in for a consult. He is..” she shook her head, her tongue touched her bottom lip. “He is a genuine genius. I’ve known him for about 5 years. We are lucky he happened to be here when it all went to shit.“ She leaned back in her chair. “I want to explain to you what we are going to do. Ordinarily, I would have wanted Tony in my civilian clinic and I would plan on several months to get him back on his feet. But we don’t have that much time. So we are going to do some quick and dirty work.” Her eyes met his. “I am going to use techniques that are still somewhat experimental.”

“Will it help him?”

“Yes. But it is likely that I am going to be papering over some issues, ignoring some things so we can concentrate on getting Tony operational in as short a time as possible. I am hoping to have him able to function in about a week.”

Gibbs stared at her. “You seem to be awfully confident doctor, but I still sense a pretty big ‘but’ at the end of that.”

She met his eyes and nodded. “But it would be far better to take it slow. I have been told that he is of vital importance, so vital that I have been authorized to do some things that might cause more damage in the long run.”

Gibbs stood. “Authorized by who?”

She remained in her seat. She did not move. She just looked at him. Her expression was a mix of determination and something else he couldn’t identify. “I have been told that you are a man who takes care of your people and that Dinozzo is special to you. I have also been told that you are not a man to cross, that you can be relentless. I know you are not going to like this…”

Gibbs moved forward, looming over her, his face set in an expression that should have scared her to death. “Authorized by _who_?

She acted as if he had not spoken. Nothing in her expression or body language gave any purchase to his rage. “…so I am going to explain some of what I am doing.” She opened her laptop and put it on the table. “You are not actually supposed to be read in on this stuff, but I want you on my side, so I am going to tell you what I will do and why I think it will work and then I am going to ask you to help me.”

Gibbs backed away from her. “Help you what?”

She entered a password and clicked on a file. Then she looked up meeting his furious eyes with a calm expression. “To start with, we have to debrief him. After that we will work on short-circuiting any serious PTSD symptoms.” She leaned forward, her brown eyes serious and intent. “Agent Gibbs, what I am going to do might cause your colleague a great deal of distress. It will get him on his feet in the short term, but I cannot be sure that he won’t be further traumatized by it. I am told that this is a necessity. Given what I have been told about the situation, I believe it is as well. But I am not able to swish a wand and make everything better. The most we can hope for is to make him functional for the time being, with the understanding that he may have serious problems in the future. In a very real sense we may be sacrificing him, at least his mental health, for the good of the rest of the human race and we can’t get permission from him first. I want you to know that doing it this way is not done lightly and I swear to you by everything I hold sacred that if he is harmed in any way by these methods, then after the survival of the entire fucking human race, my very next priority will be the well-being of Anthony DiNozzo. From now on, as long as he and I both live.” 

Gibbs stared at her blankly for a long moment.

“Tell me why research on PTSD is so classified, Doctor. That is the one thing I don’t understand,” Ducky said from his corner of the room.

McKnight met his gaze. “Because what we are doing could easily be used to interrogate and/or brainwash as well as treat, Doctor Mallard. For the time being, we are being very careful about who we let in on what we are doing.”

Gibbs and Ducky shared a look and Ducky said, “And what exactly are you going to do?”

“I have a lot of sensors on his body. Blood pressure, heart rate, perspiration, that sort of thing. Like they use for so-called lie detectors, though mine are a good deal more sophisticated and mine are not being used to pretend I can detect lies. I use EKGs and EEGs to monitor electrical activity in the heart and the brain. I also have a group of extremely short-acting drugs. The clinical blood levels of each of these drugs can only be maintained by constant infusion. If I change the dosage it is reflected in the blood serum within one to three minutes. This allows me a kind of control that is just not possible with normal drugs.”

“What kind of drugs?” Ducky asked. 

“Sedatives of various kinds, painkillers, anxiolytics, several steroid compounds that mimic epinephrine and other catecholamines, but are very short-acting. I have artificial versions of several endorphins as well as drugs to block the effects of endorphins. There are drugs to control serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin levels in the brain—those are still very experimental and I will be using them with extreme caution if I use them at all.”

“And what is all this supposed to do?”

“Agent Gibbs, trauma, either physical or emotional or both, causes actual physical changes in your brain and that in turn changes how your brain processes sensory input, how emotions are stimulated and controlled, how memory functions. The changes may be minor and temporary. They may be major and crippling. I have spent my career trying to understand exactly what is going on in the brains of traumatized people, so I can learn how to incorporate that information into therapies that will be more successful than previous efforts in treating post-traumatic stress. We’ve made some progress but we are painfully slowed by the difficulty that we can only use traumatized humans to perfect the techniques and there are serious ethical considerations that have to be addressed for each individual involved in our studies.”

Gibbs felt the rage beginning again, “So now you have a patient that you can experiment on and you don’t have to worry about those pesky ethics. “

She sighed, then her eyes came up and she met his gaze with no sign of either guilt or arrogance. “You don’t know me, Gibbs. You have no reason to trust me. I get that. I really do. All I can do here is show you. I meant what I said earlier. I am determined to help Agent DiNozzo get better. The fact that he is an invaluable asset in our fight against these things means he goes to the head of the line, but my primary focus here is to help him and all the others like him. I hope what I learn treating him will make treating others easier, yes, but I admit I would not be using some of these techniques with him, now, if it was not imperative that we be able to talk to him, to have him help us in this fight now, not in couple of weeks or months or years. Now.” She sighed again. Her shoulders slumped slightly and her voice lowered. “You know what has happened to the one person that has regained consciousness after surviving the removal of a parasite. I don’t want that for Tony or any of the others. I want to help.” 

Gibbs felt the ever present exhaustion dropping on him again. He rubbed his face with both hands. “What do you want from me.”

“For the moment, I want you to just talk to him. Start the debrief. I’ll try to keep him as balanced as I can, prevent too emotional a reaction, ease his anxiety.” She smiled slightly. “I won’t turn him into a Vulcan, Gibbs. He’s been hurt badly and trying to bury that under drugs will cause untold damage. For now, I’ll just be trying to soothe the rougher edges so he can talk to you. We’ll play this by ear. I’ll be in another room for this part, but you’ll be wearing an earwig so I can advise you as we go along.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mention of suicidal thoughts. Some self-harm, though not bad.

**Part 4: Crisis**

_Crisis: 1. The turning point of a disease for better or worse; especially a sudden change, usually for the better, in the course of an acute disease. 2. a sudden paroxysmal intensification of symptoms in the course of a disease._

 

**Tuesday August 7-Wednesday August 8, 2007**

 

He was so still. The ventilator had been removed, and Ducky said his oxygen levels were good, and that he would be waking soon, but Gibbs watched the motionless face and wondered. Had the Tony he knew been lost forever? He knew, he knew very personally, what trauma could do to a man. He knew what guilt could do. The thought of what Tony faced when he woke left him feeling miserably helpless and yes, guilty, and so he was glad to let the man sleep a little longer. 

A small childish part of him wanted to wail about how unfair it all was. They had reconnected. There had been hope that they could be at least be friends again, and maybe… maybe more. He kept thinking about the feel of Tony’s face on his fingers that hot sunny day in the garden in Ashford. A thousand years ago. And another, far older, image that he had (mostly) successfully purged from his thoughts kept coming back now. Tony, beautiful, naked, flushed, his nipples hard, his body glistening with sweat, his mouth smeared with saliva and come, his head thrown back, shouting out his release as Gibbs stroked him through it.  


But with that always came the look on Tony’s face when he realized that Gibbs was in the process of dumping him. That memory clutched at his guts every time. Even though they had talked and it looked as if there was a possibility of forgiveness and some sort of future, that memory still stabbed.

“Ah, God, Tony. I’m so sorry.”

And now he sat and and thought about how much he had lost the day that Tony dropped his resignation on the Director’s desk and left without saying a word to Gibbs or anyone else. He’d been so stunned when Jenny came down the stairs that Monday morning and told them all that DiNozzo had quit the Friday before. By the time he’d gotten to Tony’s apartment there was nothing left. Jenny had seemed strangely accepting of the resignation. She had had Tony in several meetings over the week before he left, had used him for several tasks she did not read Gibbs in on. That she had seemed almost satisfied by his departure seemed unnatural, now that he wasn’t so busy beating himself up about the whole thing. He wanted to ask Tony…

They’d made him sleep. Dr. McKnight had more or less forced a sleeping pill on him, saying she wouldn’t let him see Tony if he was exhausted. They’d let him sleep for 11 hours and he’d been furious, but Ducky had told him that everything was on hold until he was awake. 

Ducky also told him about the rather uncomfortable meeting that had taken place outside Tony’s new room between Tony’s new doctor, Ducky, the members of the BAU and the MCRT. There had been accusations that Gibbs had been given preferential access to Tony because the Chief of Medicine was his friend. No one had been ugly about it, but there were questions and no one could blame the members of the BAU for that. Tony had been theirs far more recently than he had belonged with NCIS. 

Ducky told him that when Dr. McKnight had asked Hotchner who among the BAU was Tony closest to, the man had sighed and said that DiNozzo had been closest to Prentiss and Rossi. Then Agent Jareau said that they were all friends, that they all wanted to help.

Gibbs believed that. And he remembered that Tony had been so miserable about the death of Prentiss and the absence of Rossi. He tried to look at the situation as objectively as possible. All the people at the BAU were students of human behavior of one kind or another. Well, except for Garcia, who just exuded friendship for those around her like a fragrance. Perhaps it was better that one of them be with Tony when he woke up. Tony had left him. They were right to think that he had no place at Tony’s side now. 

But Ducky had said that McKnight was less interested in who had known Tony most recently than who he was most used to seeing in a hospital context. And it turned out that Tony had only been hurt once since joining the BAU, just some cracked ribs after tackling a perp, and landing wrong, with the big serial killer on top of him. So she had suggested that it be Gibbs who he woke up to. She told them that Tony was going to need them all, especially Abby and Hotchner. Gibbs wondered about that, wondered about the relationship the two men had. He’s been so wrapped up in his own fear for Tony that he had hardly noticed Hotchner at all. His only clear memory of him during the time Tony was gone was seeing him in a corner of the cafeteria, hands around a cup of coffee, head down, radiating misery. He’d assumed it was grief for his two dead agents, but now he wondered if it might also have been the same fear that Gibbs was carrying. He felt bad about not stopping to say something to him. They shared a terrible connection and they should have talked more. The trouble was that neither man was a talker. 

He sighed. Tony’s hand in his twitched slightly. A soft voice in his ear said, “His brain function is coming up to consciousness fast now, Gibbs.”

He nodded. He knew the understated glass picture on the wall, swirls of soft muted colors that almost, but not quite, looked exactly like an impression of a hot day in some kind of purple swamp, was a one-way glass and that there were several people in the other room, watching. 

A few more minutes went by and then Tony moved his legs a little, a grimace crossing his face. Gibbs stood and leaned over him. “Hey, Tony. Time to come back.” Tony’s face scrunched up again and he moved restlessly. In a slightly harsher tone, Gibbs said, “DiNozzo!”

Tony seemed to tense, then muttered, “ ‘n y’r six, Boss,” in a harsh croak, but did not open his eyes.

It hit Gibbs like a blow to the face, sharp and cruel. He straightened, took a step back. The pain was so intense that he didn’t even notice the tears until they started running down his cheeks. He drew a shaky breath, trying to get control of his mouth, his mouth that was trembling and that wanted very badly to sob. Another breath. He wiped the tears away. The voice in his ear said, “That’s good. Just ride it out.” There was a calm in the voice, an acceptance of his distress, even though the woman couldn’t possibly understand why that had hurt so badly. 

It took him another few minutes to regain a control he had let slip so very seldom in his life. All that time Tony was showing signs of increasing wakefulness, but it was almost five minutes before he finally opened his eyes.

Hazy green eyes stared at the ceiling a moment, a faint scowl wrinkling Tony’s brow. Gibbs saw the moment the memories started coming back. Tony’s eyes went wide with alarm and fear and his hands went to the back of his neck, reaching down that to his shoulders. His next breath hitched into a tiny high-pitched cry. 

Gibbs leaned over him again, hands on his arms. “Easy, Tony. It’s okay. It’s gone. You’re safe.”

Tony’s eyes locked on his, wild, seeming to take a moment to focus and a moment more to recognize. He whispered, “Oh, God.” His breathing was panicked and he sat up, his hands still reached for his neck and shoulders. 

Then he screamed.

And then he screamed again. And again.

Gibbs gathered him into his arms, holding the rigid body as close as he could while the screams continued. He talked to him, keeping his voice as gentle as possible, assuring him over and over that the slug was gone, that he was free. After about a minute the screams changed to harsh panting, and then the body in his arms went limp. Gibbs held on to him, wondering if the doctor had sedated him again and if this would happen the next time he woke up. 

But though Tony had stopped hyperventilating, he was not unconscious. His arms went around Gibbs, holding on to him so tightly Gibbs could barely breath. They remained like that for a while, Tony limp except for the arms around Gibbs’ neck, breathing in little gasps as Gibbs stroked hands down the lower part of his back, telling him it was safe, he was free, over and over. After a long time, Tony whispered, “Abby,” and pulled away enough to see Gibbs eyes.

Gibbs met those green eyes. “She’s okay, Tony. It never touched her.”

Tony lay back on his pillow, face gone expressionless. He looked up at the ceiling and said, “Rossi?”

McKnight said, “Tell him he’s gone. Not the suicide.”

Gibbs said, “He didn’t make it, Tony. I’m sorry. I know he was your friend.”

“He was,” Tony said in a cold voice. “I killed my friend and tried to kill you and tried to enslave Abby and…” 

The headslap was closer to a caress than a blow, but Tony’s startled eyes went to Gibbs’, who said, “No. No, Tony. You did not. That thing—”

“That thing didn’t make me kill Rossi, Gibbs. I did that.”

“Aw, Tony, that was self defense. You know it was. Do you think Rossi wanted anything else? Do you think he wanted the slug on you?” 

Tony’s eyes went distant and Gibbs wondered what he was remembering. Then he turned his eyes back to Gibbs, sharp and hard. “So, did I miss? We were, what, 10 feet apart? Don’t tell me you were wearing a vest. You hate to wear a vest.”

Gibbs said, “I do, but that night I was wearing one.”

Tony’s eyes were still hard, but there was something else in them. Guilt. He started to say something else, but Tony suddenly blurted, “I tried. I was, was so confused and I couldn’t figure out what was happening and I called you, but it wasn’t me, and you came and then my arm went up and--” He let out his breath explosively, sucked in another and his voice went very quiet. “I tried. But it just shot you. I couldn’t stop it. Oh, God, I tried, I tried, but I couldn’t do anything, and you went down and it turned my body away before I could even see if you were alive.” Gibbs saw tears beginning to form and wondered how the man had stayed tearless to this point. “I thought I killed you, Gibbs. All that time, while my body was moving around and doing--” He sucked in another shuddering breath. “Horrible things. And I knew you were dead and oh, God, I wanted to be dead too.” He was sobbing now, and Gibbs put a hand on him, patting him softly, then pulled him back into his arms and held him while Tony cried.

When the sobbing had almost stopped, Gibbs let him lie back on the pillow again. He said, “I was pretty sure it was going to kill you, Tony. That would have been smarter. Ditch the body we know it had and take another. We don’t know why it didn’t do that. But the whole time you were gone, I knew it could decide to move on and I knew it would kill you when it did. Like Riley.” He saw Tony shudder again. “But the important part is I survived and you survived and you are going to be okay. You have some healing to do, but you are going to be okay.”

Tony didn’t look like he believed him. He started to try to turn onto his side, away from Gibbs and then winced. “Ow. Damn. My feet.”

“Yeah. That thing busted them up pretty bad.”

Tony blinked several times and then said, “I wasn’t allowed to stop walking, even when they started hurting.”

“You could feel them?”

Tony flicked a glance at him and then returned his gaze to the ceiling. “Yeah. I felt… Everything.”

“Jesus, Tony.”

“Find out if he is hurting anywhere else,” the doctor told Gibbs. 

He could feel a rebellion starting, but he knew that this was necessary now, so he said, “Do you hurt anywhere else?”

Tony didn’t seem to hear him at first. Then he said, absently, “I hurt everywhere else. I…” He stopped, and turned his head away.

“Talk to me, Tony.”

“Everything hurts, Gibbs. Every muscle in my body is screaming at me.” He shuddered, then turned his eyes to Gibbs. “Why did you bother?”

“Bother what?”

“Catching me. You should have just put a bullet in my head. Capturing me was stupid, Gibbs. That thing could have transferred…” His eyes went wide again. “It didn’t, did it? Jesus, tell me it didn’t.”

Gibbs put a hand on his shoulder and Tony moved away from it. Gibbs said softly, “It didn’t. I don’t know what they did with it, but I know slugs don’t live long after they are taken off. You remember that, right?”

Tony nodded hesitantly, eyes thoughtful.

“So you don’t have to worry about it any more,” Gibbs told him. 

In the other room, McKnight said to herself, “Well, shit.” She looked over the graphs telling her what Tony’s brain and heart were doing, and those that told her what the blood levels of her various drugs were doing and sighed. Time for a break. For herself, for Gibbs, and especially for Tony. She chose a pain killer with a heavy sedative side effect and watched as Tony’s eyes fluttered and closed. Gibbs made no attempt to keep him awake. She had a few things to explain to Gibbs and she knew he wasn’t going to like it. So, not so much a break for anyone but Tony.

 

***

  


“It wasn’t like that,” Tony said. His voice was dull, shoulders slumped. Tim McGee had decided the moment he’d entered the room with Kate and saw the look on Tony’s face, that he didn’t give a fuck why Tony had left them, left them with no warning, no explanation. He’d carried the anger for two years and it just wasn’t there anymore. Seeing Tony like this…

He’d seen Tony too exhausted to keep up his schtick. He’d seen him simmering with rage. He’d seen him devastated by circumstances. He’d seen him drowning in sorrow. For all that Tony tried to keep his cheerful, idiotic frat boy held well out in front of his real face, the work had occasionally blown it out of the way, allowing Tim to glimpse what lay underneath it. But now, there was no mask. What had happened to Tony had torn it away completely and Tim couldn’t continue with what seemed, now, like a petty, selfish anger. 

Tony took a sip of water, and glanced around the room. It was full of people. Tim, Kate, Gibbs, and Dr. Reid. In a back corner, silent, just observing, was Agent Hotchner. In the door was the doctor he’d been introduced to early in the day, Dr. McKnight. Tim wasn’t sure they should all be here. He knew he wouldn’t like having all these people listening. But Tony didn’t seem to mind. His hands are steady as he put the glass back down on the bed table that had been placed above his lap. He blinked once, slowly, and Tim looked at the IV attached to Tony under a broad flexible transparent sheet of plastic that was more or less glued to most of his forearm. It occurred to him that Tony was heavily medicated right now. That thought made him uncomfortable. 

Tony’s toneless voice went on. “It was like… I don’t know how to describe it.” His expression was puzzled. Finally he said, “Look, when you are driving down the street you do most of it more or less automatically. You don’t think, ‘Okay, I need to turn the wheel an inch to the right to maintain a straight line down this lane.’ You’re not actively thinking about how to move your muscles. Your muscles just do it. What people call muscle memory. Right?” Gibbs nodded. “It was like that. I didn’t think, ‘Gee, I guess I’ll shoot Gibbs and then run down the mountain to get away.’ I just did it.” 

Tim said, “Like watching someone else control a first person shooter.”

Gibbs threw him a stabbing glare. “What?”

Tim was frozen by the rage in the blue eyes. He mumbled, “Well, it’s a type of video game, Boss. On the screen, you see what someone who was actually traveling the landscape and using the weapons would see. If someone else is controlling the game it would…” The glare wasn’t getting better and Tim ground to a halt.

“He’s right, Gibbs. Kind of like your muscles moving to drive a car. Kind of like watching a game with no control.” Tony swallowed, and the haunted look in his eyes returned. “No control.”

Gibb’s eyes went back to Tony’s face. “You weren’t able to control anything?”

“No.”

“Did you try?” Reid asked gently. 

Around his own outrage, Tim heard other sounds of protest, but Tony looked up at Reid, face nearly blank. After a moment he said, “No.” He cleared his throat. “I tried to fight it at first, gain control of my body. But I couldn’t. After a while I just… I just stopped trying. I tried to stop thinking instead. It was so bad and I couldn’t do anything so I just… quit. For a lot of the time there wasn’t a me there. I remember everything I did, everything I saw. I feel things about it now, but then, then I didn’t want to react to anything.” 

Dr. Reid murmured, “Learned helplessness.”

Tim saw Tony throw a glance at the tall FBI agent and tried to define his expression. Resentment, a bit of anger, and… acquiescence. He was agreeing.

Reid said, “Given that you had no control, you divorced yourself from the situation. You found a place in your mind where you could hide, and tried to ignore what was happening to your body. It is often a very successful strategy for people who have lost control in a bad situation. It allows them to survive the situation with their mind more or less intact. Other rape victims often describe a similar tactic.”

Everyone in the room but Tony stirred uneasily. Reid looked around at them, his face stern. “His body was used in a way that he did not want it used. Tony was raped. There is no point in pretending otherwise.” 

Tony chuckled. It was a horrible sound. “Thanks, Spencer. I know I can depend on you.” He looked around at the other people in the room. “I’m serious. Spencer knows. He knows that you can only deal with reality successfully if you know what it is.”

Spencer looked unhappy, but the little smile that Tony sent him was real. There was a slight relaxation in the room.

“I didn’t really try to fight it again until I realized it was going after Abby.” Tony’s gaze was locked with Gibbs’. “I fought it then, Gibbs. I swear, I tried.”

Gibbs said softly, “I know you did, Tony.”

“It just didn’t do any good.” The bitterness in Tony’s voice spread out into the whole room, tightening every mouth.

Dr. McKnight said calmly, “That’s all for now, gentlemen and lady. He needs to rest.”

Tony sighed in unmistakable relief. He turned onto his side, away from them all.

“One more question,” Gibbs said. “Tony, were you aware of its plans, what it was going to do in a week or a month?”

Tony’s body didn’t move. After a moment, he said, “No.”

 

***

  


McKnight was sitting at the little table in his room, with her laptop open. She occasionally clicked a key, but all her attention was on Tony. He was sitting in the more comfortable of the arm chairs in the room. His body was in a relaxed pose, but tiny shivers ran along his arms and legs. She had been weaning him off the anxiolytics and sedatives and it showed.

“You survived, Tony. We can start from that.” 

He was staring at the wall again. He murmured, “I don’t think I did.”

“Did what?

“Survive.” He looked up. “I think it killed me.” 

She shook her head.“Oh, you’re alive, Tony. I can tell all the way from here. You are breathing and you just drank a cup of truly awful coffee.” She leaned forward a little, to meet his eyes. “Bad coffee means life, Tony. You’re alive. You survived.”

Tony shook his head, but it didn’t look like he was disagreeing with her. It was a more general denial. He sat up, put his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands.

“You are going to get better. You will not be torn to tatters like this for long. You are going to sew those tatters back together and heal.”

As she spoke, he lifted his head a little and intertwined his fingers. Then he lowered his head again and she saw him drop his mouth onto his clasped hands. He was biting himself. Her fingers went to the keyboard, changing a dosage. She could see his jaw muscles clench and begin to tremble. Then his hands started to shake and the tremors ran up his arms to his shoulders. She said nothing, watching him carefully. She saw the drug hit. He began to relax and the tremors stopped. After a long silence he let go of his finger and she could see that though it is very red and bruised he hadn’t broken the skin.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he muttered, playing with the place where catheter was taped to his arm.

“Why? Were you enjoying yourself?”

“It’s in there. Sometimes it breaks loose and I can’t…” He was silent a long time and McKnight was beginning to think she’d made a mistake in dosage, but he opened his eyes at last. “I don’t even know what it is. I know it scares me.”

“It’s all the rage and fear and helplessness and hate that you had to hide from when the slug was on you. It is in there. You need a better way to let it out than hurting yourself.”

His eyes went to hers. “How?” 

She dialed the medication back again. “Well, this is just winging it, but how about you get yourself back in one piece and then go out there and find them and kill them.”

He stared at her a long time. “I thought you shrinks like to get people to stop being angry. You know, get rid of the hate, so you can find peace.”

She shrugged. “Circumstances alter cases. Or, as one of my professors in medical school used to say, ‘Everything depends.’ Learning to deal with the anger and hate that contact with our fellow humans can cause is something we all need to learn, because there will be more hurt. There is always more hurt, and we have to learn to deal with it without crippling ourselves, embittering our lives with hate. I often recommend using the anger and hate as motivation to improve the lives of others, because that often improves the quality of a patient’s own life as well.” She leaned back slightly, glancing at the readouts on her computer, then back to Tony. “This is different, but I have the same advice. Use the anger and hate. In this case, use that energy to go out and destroy them.”

He was silent a long time. Then he said, “I don’t think I have that in me. I just want to be who I was. He could be an asshole sometimes, but I kinda liked him.” 

“That can’t happen. You know that. What happened to you has changed you forever. Whether that will be a hopeful thing or another tragedy is up to you.”

There was another long silence. She touched another key and after another few minutes, Tony said, “And you think there’s some hope for hopeful?”

She took a deep breath. “Yeah, Tony. I do. Your social constructs, the faces you turn to the world, have been shattered. Your core personality has taken a massive blow, but it survived and you will too. You’ll have scars. No question about that. But, Tony, do you know what a scar is?” He blinked at her, puzzled. She went on, “A scar is what happens when you survive, when you get better. So, yeah. There is a lot of hope for hopeful”.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DeeJaymil has done a fantastic job of betaing this. 
> 
> There will be an interrogation that includes torture. No, I do not think torture is acceptable.

**Thursday August 9--Friday August 16, 2007  
**

 

  


Gibbs stood outside Tony’s door, watching the younger man put on a pair of running shoes very carefully. It was the first time he’d had on shoes for more than a week and the first time Gibbs had seen him without an IV. He’d been getting physical therapy in an attempt to quickly get back the muscle mass he had lost and they’d included walking, but they’d been very careful about the healing skin on his feet, allowing him only soft sandals that didn’t rub against any of the blistered areas.

Tony still looked too skinny, but his overall look of health was slowly returning. It had been difficult, at first, for Tony to eat enough. His stomach had rebelled at being filled after the days of being empty, so they’d supplemented his diet with IV feedings. At the same time he’d been constantly interrogated. Gibbs and Hotchner had been shoved out of that process after the second day, and McKnight no longer attended after the third. 

Gibbs had pinned Tommy down about it, but she had simply told him that when the Commandant of the Marine Corps gave her an order, she followed it. He’d managed to get to the SecNav after the bastard had obviously been stonewalling him and had been told flatly that interrogations of potential enemies were not usually done by the interrogatee’s friends and/or co-workers. 

Gibbs had insisted that Dinozzo was not an enemy, and Davenport had said, “You don’t know that, Gibbs. You’re assuming that getting that thing off him frees him from its influence because that’s what you hope. I can’t allow that hope to interfere in the process of finding out if it’s true.”

So he had not seen Dinozzo directly for almost a week, although the President’s requirement of information sharing had meant that he could watch recordings of the interrogations. Most of it had been straightforward enough, but there was one CIA guy and a JAG officer that he intended to arrange to find alone in dark alleys someday. 

But Tony had responded to them quietly, answered their questions, did not rise to their insults. If his affect was a little too flat for Gibbs’ comfort, he’d still been proud of the way Tony had dealt with the questioning. He’d clearly started to get bored with the CIA agent after a couple of days, because he had begun to methodically interrogate the man himself, without seeming to do so, with so much success that the agent had been pulled after another day and a far more savvy woman had been put in his place. 

Tony hadn’t messed with her, simply answered her questions as if he hadn’t answered them all before. Only on the last day did his temper seem to rear up a little. He’d told the JAG officer, “You’re not really very good at this, you know. I mean, I do this for a living too, and frankly, I’m not impressed. Surely they didn’t teach you that aggression was the only way to get answers from people.” His expression had been open and friendly, his grin a cheerful if silent Fuck you, buddy, and Gibbs had felt a surge of affection and relief. That was his Tony. 

Then, last night, they had told Gibbs what they intended to do next. 

He was perfectly willing to admit that he had lost his shit. It had been a nasty argument and the only thing that had stopped it from coming to blows was when the President himself came on the the big screen in the room and had told him flatly to shut up and help them with the project.

Gibbs had told the President of the United States to go fuck himself. 

SecNav had tracked him down to where he was pacing back and forth along an empty corridor two floors below the occupied area of the installation. He’d leaned against the wall, watching him for a minute, until Gibbs stopped pacing and stood staring at him, death glare in full force.

Davenport had said, quietly, “We need your help with this, Gibbs.”

“No.”

“Gibbs—”

“I said no. I am not going to help you talk him into it. I will not betray him like that. There is nothing you can do or say that will make me do that.”

Davenport straightened a little and recited, “ ‘I , Leroy Jethro Gibbs, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.’ “ After a pause he added, “That’s what you said, Gibbs. Did you mean it? Or was it just for when doing that would be easy?"

Gibbs had stared at him in what must have looked like horror. The man simply returned his stare. Gibbs had turned away, his jaw tight, his gut roiling, feeling something almost like tears stinging in his eyes.

“Gibbs, I do not ask this of you lightly. That boy is important to you. I know that.”

Gibbs put one hand to the wall and leaned into it. His voice was hoarse as he shook his head and said, “That has nothing to do with it. You don’t understand. I wouldn’t want to do that to the man that murdered my family.”

There had been a long silence, and then SecNav had said, “It has to be done, Gibbs. I think you know that. Oh, and by the way, don’t tell McKnight what’s going to happen. She’s busy with those two we managed to get slugs off without killing them. I don’t want her involved.”

Gibbs had looked at him with hate in his eyes. “Because she never took the oath and she’ll try to stop you.”

“Exactly.”

 

***

  


Ducky looked at him with the coldest eyes he’d ever seen on the man and said, “We need it to be Tony.”

“Why. Ducky? For God’s sake why?”

“Because we know Tony. We’ll learn more from the slug on him than on any other possibility.”

Gibbs sank down onto the bed there in Ducky’s room. He didn’t think he had ever been so bewildered in his life. “How could you, Ducky?”

And the pain in the old man’s voice answered the question. “Oh, Jethro. I don’t want to. If it would get us the information we need I would far rather kill myself in some horrible way than do this to Tony. Please believe me.” He sat down on the bed next to him and said, “We need more information about them. Spencer thinks it is possible that the slugs get more than memories from their hosts. They may get personality or even intelligence from them. If we talk to one living on a stranger we won’t know what is the stranger and what is the slug. With Tony, if there is a difference, we’ll be able to tell.”

 

***

  


Then there had been the confrontation with Tony’s new boss. He’d glared at Hotchner. “I have no choice, but I thought better of you, Hotchner. I can’t believe you’re involved with this.” He looked at Reid. “Or you.” 

Reid couldn't hold his gaze, but Hotchner did with no sign of discomfort. He spoke quietly. “I have a wife and a son and those things are out there. I believe the only way to protect my family, and all the other families, from them is to know more about them. I’m not happy about this, but I believe it must be done. He survived it once before and I believe he can survive it again.”

“I told the SecNav that I would kill anyone who tried to force him. Believe me, Hotchner, I meant it. He volunteers or it doesn’t get anywhere near him.”

Hotchner said, “I agree. I don’t believe in conscription, even when things are dire.”

Reid said, “I consider myself to be his friend, Gibbs. We’ve only worked together for a year, but I believe Tony will volunteer. He’ll understand how desperate we are for information. We do have some hope. Remember that the one on Mrs. Riley said she wasn’t compatible? It eventually died. The one that tried to attach to Garcia died, and we know it died very quickly. It punctured her skull with its haptor, but immediately withdrew it, detached and died. We think something about those two women was poisonous to the slugs, with Garcia being far more deadly, and we are trying to figure out what that is. The potential for a vaccine, or at the least, a treatment that will force the slug off without hurting the victim is there, but it will take months at the very least. It might take years. We can’t pass up the opportunity to gain more information.”

 

***

  


So now he stood in the door watching. Tony looked up and saw him and gave him one of his heart-melting smiles, and all he could think was, _Goodbye, Tony._

 

***

  


Tony walked into the conference room with Gibbs, hands in his pockets, looking very casual. Hotch was not fooled. He knew Gibbs had not told him what the meeting was about, but Tony was a damned good profiler for a relative beginner and he had known Gibbs for years. The older NCIS agent had no obvious expression on his face. Hotch doubted that had fooled Tony.

Tony looked around the room, seeing Hotch, Reid, and Colonel Garza, along with the two Marines that were with the Colonel at all times. Little of the wariness that could be seen in his body language showed in his face or his voice when he said, “Is this an intervention? Okay, I admit I spend too much time watching James Bond movies. I mean it may be a little over the top that I can quote the complete dialog of every one of them, including Casino Royale, which has only been out a year, so I understand your concern.” He looked around the room meeting the eyes of everyone there. He locked on to Hotch and said, “What do you think of the new Bond, anyway? I mean he’s got enough presence to fill the screen, that’s for sure. And he makes the fight choreography look pretty realistic even though it’s as fanciful as the fights in any action movie. His body language is good, but there just seems to be something missing. It’s one thing to suppress emotions and something else to—”

“Tony.” Hotchner had seen him like this occasionally in the past year. It usually meant he was trying to pretend something didn’t bother him. 

Tony sighed and threw himself into a chair, assuming a languid pose. “So, what? More interrogation? I guess the CIA was the bad cops and now you guys are the good cops?”

Hotch said, in his flat even tone, “I do have a couple more questions.”

Tony tilted his head to one side, “Ones I haven’t answered thirty or forty times already?” He threw a glance at Gibbs that Hotch could not interpret. "That's going to be a bit of a challenge."

“Did the slug ever communicate with you?” 

Tony made a noise like a game show buzzer. “Sorry, I’ve answered that one several times, Hotch. You’ll have to try again. The answer is no.”

“Did you try to talk to it?”

Tony’s eyes narrowed and he sat up straight. He said coldly, “I see I haven’t made myself clear. I did not do anything. From the minute that thing…” He seemed to gag a little, then went on in a quieter but no less intense voice, “From the moment it caught me to the moment I woke up here, I. Did. Not. DO. _Anything_.”

Hotch dropped his eyes for a moment, then looked back into Tony’s eyes and said, “I hear what you’re saying.”

Tony snorted and turned away, spinning the chair. 

Gibbs understood what the others in this room wanted and why. He didn’t even entirely disagree with the need. They all seemed to think that Tony would volunteer and he could understand that too. Tony was brave as hell and they had worked with him long enough to know the kinds of things Tony might do to safeguard others. But Gibbs was pretty sure that there was no way Tony would volunteer for this. 

And he was also pretty sure that Gibbs even being in this room would be considered a betrayal that their barely reborn friendship could not survive. 

Gibbs took a step forward. “We have to talk to one of them.”

“What?” Tony’s head came up, staring at Gibbs.

“We have to talk to one of them. The one that… that captured you is the only one we have alive at the moment, and we need to talk to it.”

Tony’s jaw dropped open, and for a second he just sat, looking at Gibbs in horror.

“You said it was dead.”

“I thought it was. I was wrong.”

Reid said, “They usually die within ten minutes of being removed, even if we coax them into dropping off without causing injury to them. With the one that was on you, we were ready. It’s on a chimpanzee at the moment. We have learned that though they will survive for a few hours on a dog or other similar-sized mammals, they start showing signs of severe metabolic problems within minutes. The one we have seems to be doing just fine on the chimpanzee.”

Gibbs cleared his throat and said firmly, “We need intel, Tony. You know that is what will win this. Intel. So we have to talk to it. And chimpanzees can’t talk.”

Tony stood, stumbling a little clumsily as he got free of the chair. He backed away, his face dead white. “You’re crazy.” His voice was a broken whisper. Tony’s eyes flicked from one to the other of the people in the room with him, his jaw working. “You can’t do that. You can’t put one of those things on somebody. Oh, God. Oh, sweet Jesus, tell me you aren’t going to put one of those things on somebody.”

With an infinite sadness, Hotch said, “Not somebody, Tony. You.”

Tony seemed to freeze. His gaze broke from Hotch’s and met Gibbs’. The guilt there was plain to see. Tony’s face changed from near panic to raw pain. “Gibbs?” he croaked.

Hotch said, “You’re the only one of four who survived the removal that is conscious and in stable enough psychological condition to be capable of consent. You have shown that you are strong enough to take it, survive it. We need to talk to it and to do that we need you to volunteer to let it back on you.”

As he spoke, he saw the emotions flickering across Tony’s face. Rage, despair, hurt, betrayal. With his lower lip trembling, he whispered, “No.”

“Tony.”

“No.” His voice was much louder now, no longer panicked. Instead, Hotch saw simple determination in his eyes. “If you try to put that thing back on me, I’ll kill myself.” His eyes went to his former boss. “Don’t doubt me, Gibbs. I’ll do it. I’ll bite my own tongue off if I can’t find a better way.” There was no bluff in his words.

“It has to be done.” Reid said into the growing silence. “Do you want to see everyone on Earth with one of those things riding them?”

Tony’s eyes jerked over to Reid. “Don’t you dare, Reid.”

Hotch’s misery only grew the longer this went on. God, he did not want to use what Reid had called the Nuclear Option. “It’s for our whole world, Tony.”

Tony stood straight, almost coming to attention. “I’ve done my part. Now you go do yours, Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner, if you think it’s that important. Or get the kid to do it.” He threw a venomous glare at Reid. “He looks like the hero type. Not me.” He turned back to Gibbs. “No,” he told him again, his voice still quiet, determined. 

Gibbs drew a deep breath. “Alright, Tony. We’ll go with one of the volunteers.”

“You actually have volunteers?” His eyes narrowed. “Informed volunteers?” At Gibbs’ nod he sneered, “I’ll just bet. You shouldn’t let me talk to them or they’ll end up a little more informed than you want them.” He looked around meeting each set of eyes. “Well, go right on, then. Just leave me out of it.” He started for the door, ignoring it when both Reid and Hotch called his name.

He opened the door and then stopped suddenly. They were quiet as he turned, a new look of horror on his face, “Ah, god, Gibbs. Not you. Tell me you didn’t volunteer.” 

Gibbs shrugged. “Somebody has to do it. And Tony, you should know I would never ask you to do something I’m not willing to do myself.”

“No! Jesus Christ, Gibbs, have you lost your fucking mind? I’m not letting you do this. No way.”

Hotch said coldly, “Special Agent Dinozzo, you have refused to volunteer. That is your right. But you do not have any say in what happens next.” He looked at Gibbs. “Let's go.”

Gibbs went through the door first, followed by Reid. Hotch turned to Tony and said, “You’re coming too, Tony.”

Tony backed away again, the panic back on his face. “Like fuck. I can’t stop you but I will not be involved.” 

Speaking for the first time, Garza said, “I’m afraid that is not an option, Special Agent DiNozzo. It’s possible that you will be able to add to any information that we get. You’re coming with us.” Hotch thought she showed more authority and made her threat more obvious by not looking at the two Marines she had at her side.

 

***

  


It was a lab, large, high ceilinged, and almost too well-lit. Gibbs looked around. There were a few lab tables, a bunch of equipment he didn’t recognize and a bunch he did, all of which was recording equipment. The cameras and microphones were all aimed at the chair in the middle of the room. It was high-backed and very sturdy and looked like a modified dentist’s chair, bolted to the floor. A hole had been cut in the back that corresponded roughly to where the slugs liked to ride, from the base of the skull to the bottom of the shoulder blades. The edges of the cut had been covered with some kind of foam that was duct taped in place. There were padded belts on the chair that would immobilize the forehead, chest, waist, upper arms, wrists, thighs and ankles. 

In the far corner he saw a glassed in cage. In it an adult chimpanzee was strapped into a similar chair, it’s eyes the only thing that moved. He wondered what they had done to the poor thing. Other than use it to house a monster, that is. From across the room it’s eyes met Gibbs’ and froze, staring at him intently. 

He turned around when he heard the others coming in. To his surprise he saw Tony was with them. He looked furious, his face red, his eyes dark, and he kept glancing at the two Marines at his elbows, clearly calculating the possibility of getting away from them.  
Gibbs eyes went to Garza, who had just walked in. “What the hell is he doing here?”

She looked at him blandly. “He may be useful.”

Gibbs gritted his teeth, thinking, Against all enemies. He had no choices here, but he had not wanted Tony to see this. He said, “Let's get this done.”

It was, after all, what he had wanted. He had wanted Tony to refuse. But Tony refusing meant that, as he had said, someone had to do it. And maybe Tony could forgive him some day if he took this horrific duty for him. He walked over to the chair and realized suddenly that he was terrified. He had, through the years, gotten used to what fear did to the human body. At times in his life, the effects of adrenaline seemed to be a constant part of him. Now he was really feeling it, the old fight or flight, and in this case flight was definitely in lead position. He could not remember feeling like this since his first full-on fire fight. When one of the technicians moved the waist belt out of the way so he could sit, he sank into the seat gratefully, hoping no one, especially Tony, could see his legs shaking.

He closed his eyes while they strapped him in. The room was incredibly quiet. The only sound he heard was the straps being tightened and someone breathing heavily. He flicked his eyes open for just long enough to see that it was Tony and he wanted to shout, “I’m sorry, Tony. I’m so sorry they are making you watch this.”

He heard the sound of the cage door across the room opening and took a moment to think of Shannon and his beautiful Kelly because it might be the last time he had the chance. He concentrated on moments he’d usually avoided remembering because it hurt so badly: the morning Kelly was born, the trip to the beach they had taken just before he was deployed that last time he was a husband and father. 

Then a voice said, “No.”

It was quiet, but it had authority. Gibbs opened his eyes and saw Tony standing in front of him, staring at something behind the chair. 

Garza said, “DiNozzo, get out of the way.”

And Tony said softly, sounding completely empty, completely defeated. “Take the straps off. I want to sit down.”

 

***

  


Gibbs tried to argue, but Tony in the chair had been what everyone but he and Tony wanted. No one, including Tony, was listening to him. So he stood back, trying to catch his breath, shamed by how glad he was to get out of that chair.

Like he had, Tony kept his eyes closed while they strapped him in, attached various things to his chest and hands that led to readouts showing what was going on in his body, but his breathing became faster and faster and he was trembling violently by the time they finished, tears leaking out of his closed eyelids and running down his cheeks. Gibbs wanted to reassure him that everything would be okay, but he found that he couldn’t lie like that. He said nothing. 

Hotchner came over and whispered to Gibbs. “You don’t have to stay here for this.”

Gibbs didn’t bother to even look at him. 

Tony must have heard the footsteps behind him, because he whimpered through his clenched teeth and his eyes flew open, unseeing, completely terrified. Now Gibbs wanted back in the damned chair. This was unbearable. He should never have allowed this. He stood, frozen, watching Tony come quietly apart. He remembered what Reid had said and he suddenly wanted to go and find a place in his mind to hide, the way Tony had done. But he saw the wet darkness spreading from Tony’s crotch and knew he had to stay and be there, be present, not because he deserved the punishment of it, though he did, but because he had to have Tony’s six, no matter what. If he could do nothing else he would bear witness.

And then Tony just stopped. 

It was only a moment, but there was a complete absence of movement. He did not even complete the panting breath he had started. He looked like a freeze frame. Then his eyes flickered closed, and when he moved again there was no more shaking. There was purpose. Gibbs realized that he was testing the straps holding him immobile, each arm and leg, his torso, his head. When he was done with that he gave a little sensuous wriggle to the extent that he could. His eyes opened and sought Gibbs’. He grinned. 

“Hey, Gibbs. You should have told me you were into bondage. We could have had so much fun.” He wriggled again, looking around at the other people in the room, smile bright, eyes calculating. He added, “My safe word is aardvark. Just so you know.”

Gibbs was pretty sure he was going to throw up. Listening to one of the techs doing so over in the corner wasn’t helping.

The monster controlling Tony sent his eyes back to Gibbs and said, “So, you went to a lot of trouble to trick me into doing this. What did you want to talk about?”

Gibbs shrugged. “It wasn’t me that wanted to talk. I’d prefer to just kill you.”

Tony’s face pouted. “Oh, Gibbs, I’m hurt. I thought you kind of loved me. Sort of. To the extent that you are capable of love. Besides, you were the one who talked me into this.”

Gibbs barked, “Stop pretending that you’re Tony. We know the difference.”

He looked thoughtful. “Do you? I’m not so sure. I’m not sure you know me at all.” His eyes went to Hotch and Reid and back to Gibbs. “Any of you. I’m not sure I know myself.” His eyes centered on Hotch. “ For instance, Aaron, I’m pretty sure your wife is cheating on you. Yet I never told you. I don’t know why, do you?”

There was not so much as a flicker of movement in Hotch’s face. Those green eyes went to Reid. “And I know I act like a real team player, but did you know I have plans to basically take over your place on the team? Because I’m pretty sure that you’re already showing signs of schizophrenia and even if you aren’t, I’m not above doing a little gaslighting.”

Gibbs glanced at Reid and saw, somewhat to his surprise, that Reid did not look the least bit distressed. He was watching Tony’s body intently, his head tilted to one side, eyes narrowed, his concentration complete. 

Gibbs said, “Are you done playing around yet?”

Tony’s eyes now gazed at him. “And what can I say about you, Jethro?. Should I tell them about the way you forced me into having sex with you and then more or less sold me to your old partner?” Gibbs had been expecting it, at least the first part, and had no trouble not reacting. Before he could reply, the slug said, “That’s really why I left, you know. She really knows how to take full advantage of an asset. She was going to set me up as a whore. You did nothing to help me.” The smile was cold.

“Done now?” Gibbs asked, managing to look bored.

Tony’s body slumped slightly. “Oh, all right. What do you want to know?”

“How many of you are there?”

Tony looked surprised. “What? How should I know? I haven’t seen any of us since we all hitched our first ride. Besides, I know you’ve managed to kill a lot of us. So your guess is probably as good as mine.”

Reid said quietly, “How often can you reproduce? Do you use mitosis exclusively or is there a sexual component to reproduction.”

Tony’s mouth spread in a wide grin. “Oh, come on, Spence. You know Tony isn’t all that smart. I don’t even know what some of those words mean.”

Again, Reid did not react. Gibbs wondered if this was part of his usual interrogation technique. Hotch snapped, “Answer the question.”

There was a flare of something a little feral in Tony’s eyes. “Or what, Agent Hotchner?”

Hotchner nodded to one of the men in full body armor and glass face shields standing behind the chair. Tony’s body arched as much as it could. He cried out once and then just lay loosely in his bonds, panting. When he opened his eyes he looked wary and a little confused for a moment. 

Hotch said, “Do we understand each other?”

Tony snarled, “I thought you didn’t approve of torture, Aaron. I remember you waxing all lyrical on the subject a couple of months ago. And you do know that it’s Tony who suffers, not me, don’t you?”

“We know you’re capable of ignoring the pain your host feels. But that electrical charge is going into you directly. I think it hurts you. I know that high enough voltage can kill you.” Reid sounded completely objective.

Hotchner nodded again and Tony screamed. This time the slug seemed distinctly disoriented and Reid said again in almost exactly the same tone of voice, “How often can you reproduce?”

Tony licked his lips and looked around the room. “It depends on the host. A nice healthy boy like Tony here and I can split every couple of days. With an old man like Rossi, I still hadn’t gotten it together enough when that Ziva hurt his leg. Who knew someone her size could be so dangerous? After that just keeping him alive was hard enough.” He looked around again, Tony’s playful Yep-I-really-did-go-there grin visible below eyes that were still cold. The smile faded, “Is that really all you want to know? I mean I know you people are obsessed with sex, but surely you have better questions to ask me than that.”

“Like what?” Hotch said mildly.

“Like why we came.”

“I think you’ve made it pretty clear why you came.”

Tony shook his head, “No, no. Honestly, I admit we’re pretty young and we tend to get a little rowdy when we’re trying to adapt to a new species. Some of us got kind of carried away, but after all, we are just trying to survive. It’s not easy, being basically children all alone in a very strange place. But we came here with a purpose.”

“What is that?”

Tony’s face had gone serious, and he was looking at Reid. “To help. We saw the way you people live and we just wanted to help.”

“Help us how?”

“We can help you end the misery on this planet. Our kind doesn’t fight each other. We live in peace. Your kind has never known peace in your entire existence.” The earnestness of Tony’s expression was hard to stand. He noticed Gibbs expression and said, “I’m serious, Boss. The way it was with Tony and I wasn’t the way it has to be. What he described, I know how it looks to you.” He turned back to Reid, “But we aren’t really parasites. Once we get completely adapted, we’re symbiotes. We can live with each other, two organisms in one body and we do no harm to each other, each helping the other.”

Reid looked thoughtful. “I can see how we can help you. At a minimum we provide transportation you are incapable of and materials necessary for continued reproduction. But what exactly can you provide us?”

“I told you. Peace. No wars. No killing over religion. No bigotry. No abused children. And without all that, working together, we can feed every person on this planet.”

Hotch said, “We haven’t seen much peace since you arrived.”

Tony shrugged. “We’ve made mistakes. Like I said, we’re children. Our elders can’t make the changes necessary to adapt to a new species.” He was radiating honesty. Even knowing it was probably all lies, Gibbs found he almost believed him. With an internal shake, he reminded himself that Tony was the best undercover operator he’d ever known.

“So they send you out in a little capsule thing like the one we found in the woods?” Hotch said. “Are you from within this solar system or are you from somewhere else? If you’re from somewhere else, we’d be interested in the technology involved in getting you here.”

Tony smiled, looking a little embarrassed. “Sorry, Hotch. That kind of stuff is way outside my area of expertise. As for where we came from,” he shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. They didn’t tell us anything about that sort of thing. Like I said, we’re kids. Does Jack know where he comes from, I mean the big picture?” Gibbs saw the tiniest flicker in Hotch’s eyes. He remembered the man telling him that he had a son and put two and two together.

Reid cleared his throat. “We calculated that there could have been room for no more than 30 of you in the capsule . We found 10 still inside, dead.”

Tony grinned. “Well, there you go. Not much of an invasion, is it?”

Reid cocked his head to one side. “Actually, assuming you can reproduce as often as once a week, a single one of you can create enough offspring to put one on every human on this planet in about 33 weeks. Even acknowledging that you may not be able to maintain that rate, I’d say that twenty of you is a considerable invasion.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. 

“And that does not even take into consideration three rather important things.” Reid continued. “One is that the way you will ‘end war’,” he made finger quotes, “Is by ending all freedom.”

Tony laughed. “Really? Tell me something, Spence. How much good does all that freedom do you?. I mean shit, you spend your life chasing down people who have too fucking much freedom and look what they do with it.” 

As if he had not spoken, Reid said, “And then there’s your claim to be a ‘kid’.”

Tony’s said, earnestly, “But it’s true.” He smiled a disarming smile. “I know I look like a big strong gorgeous hunk of man, but I’m really just a baby.”

Spencer said softly, “No you aren’t. You reproduce by mitosis, creating two smaller copies of an adult organism. You don’t have a childhood. You were born an adult.” Tony scowled at him. Reid went on, “And the third important thing is how many capsules actually landed on Earth.”

Tony stared at him. Then he shrugged. “It’s just us. Like you said, we really don’t need more.”

Reid glanced at Hotch, and then at Colonel Garza. He said, “Oh, I don’t think so. Ten of you died before you left your capsule. Getting here was clearly a rather dangerous activity. You would need more than one capsule to make sure at least a few of you made it. I doubt if there were many, because most of you are impulsive and careless and if there were lots of you we would have heard about something weird going on in other locations by now. So tell me how many capsules there were.”

Tony had gone blank faced. He did not answer. Hotch met eyes with the man holding the modified cattle prod and nodded. Tony’s body arched, and he screamed again. Before he could regain his composure, Hotch said, “You pretend to be ignorant about a great deal, but I think you’re lying. I think you know how many capsules arrived here. I want to know how many and where they landed.”

Tony glared at him. “Fuck you.” And he screamed again.

Gibbs stood and watched, his face expressionless, his hands in fists. He had no idea how long it went on. The monster refused to talk, was hit with the electric current over and over. It seemed to take longer each time to be able to produce coherent words as it tried to convince them that it did not know the answer to the questions they asked. 

And then after a longer jolt than they had used in the past, Tony lay in his bonds, sweat drenching him, blood coming from his mouth and nose. He looked up, and when he saw Gibbs he whispered, “Boss. Please. Help me.” Then the slug seemed to regain control and continued to fight the straps that held him. Gibbs wondered why, when there was no way he was getting out of that chair until they let him out. He wondered if the slug actually understood that. Gibbs watched, afraid that it was hurting Tony in its struggles. He could see blood on the straps at his wrists. 

The slug seemed to be getting weaker. Gibbs was pretty sure it wasn’t going to last much longer. Then, suddenly, Tony’s body slumped and Tony croaked, “Please stop. Please.”

Hotch said, “Tell us how many there were and where they landed.”

Tony’s green eyes, glazed, incredibly bloodshot, flickered. He mumbled, “China.”

“Where else.”

It said nothing. One more jolt and Tony gave a choking gurgle and relaxed completely. Behind him, a man said, “Um, sir. That thing looks like it ruptured”

Someone who had been monitoring the equipment attached to Tony stood up suddenly. “He’s not breathing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I was originally going to have the President recite the oath, but then I remembered who was President in 2007 and I just didn’t see him understanding a man like Gibbs well enough to know that that would work.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deejaymil has been a real trooper, fixing all my "issues". This chapter was a real mess until she got hold of it. Thanks, hon. I have added a little since she saw it, so all problems you find are mine alone.

**Part 5: Sequela**  
_Sequela(e), n., a morbid condition following or occurring as a consequence of another condition or event.  
_

 

  


**Friday August 16, 2007-Saturday September 22, 2007**

 

  


The corpsmen had moved the gurney out of the room with Gibbs following. They’d gotten Tony’s heart and breathing going again in a matter of ten minutes or so. He’d regained consciousness not long after, but he had not spoken and when Reid had tried to apologise he had turned away, his face a hard mask. Hotch had exchanged one glance with Gibbs and had known that it was likely that they had lost both men to this event. 

He turned around, looking at the room, feeling lost and with a guilt so massive he did not think he would ever recover.

Behind him Reid murmured, “It doesn’t look all that much like a traditional sacrificial altar, does it? There’s not much blood.”

Hotch turned and saw a look on Reid’s face that he suspected looked a lot like the one on his own. “Reid…”

Reid made a throw-away gesture with his hand. “I know. We had no choice.” He sighed. “That doesn’t make it better.” 

“No, it doesn’t.” Garza had come to stand with them. She looked around the room. People were making copies of the recordings, moving the dead chimpanzee into a body bag. The corporal who had started cleaning the chair Tony had been in was openly crying, but did not stop what he was doing. The man who had been using the cattleprod was walking back and forth, stiff-legged, anger radiating off of him, until a friend stopped him and started taking his armour off. Then he stood still, looking defeated. She added, “Tony wasn’t the only one damaged by this.” She turned and gazed at each of them, her eyes hard. “Welcome to my world, gentlemen. People are damaged by what they have to do in a war all the time. It’s the price. You just have to make damned sure it was worth that price.”

“Was it?” Hotch said, bitterly.

“Yes. We will have to get with the Chinese government. It won’t be easy to convince them, but once we do, we can give them what we have learned. They can go after their own problem.“

“We don’t know that is the only other one.”

“No, but you were right, Dr. Reid. There are probably not all that many. We know what to look for and we have analysts who know how to look. We’ll find them.”

“What about the ones that are still at large here?”

She looked Hotch in the eye. “We’ll find them.” There was no doubt in her eyes at all.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Dr. Mcknight took one look at Tony as they brought him down the corridor, turned on Gibbs, and slapped him full across the face. He didn’t even flinch. He just looked at her, blood showing at the corner of his mouth, eyes dull. 

“You son of a bitch!” 

Gibbs nodded. 

The way he was reacting staunched a little of her anger, but when he started to pass her to go to Tony she grabbed his arm. “Oh, no. You get to see him again when he wants to see you. Not one second sooner.”  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Two days later, Hotch came into Tony’s room, face grim. Tony looked at him once and then turned away. Hotch looked him over. He looked better than Hotch had expected, given the injuries that the slug had done to him trying to get out of the chair. All he could see was the bandages on his wrists and the deep bruise on his forehead. There was the remains of a meal on a hospital table in front of one of the chairs in the room and it looked like most of it had been eaten. Tony was sitting on his bed, shoulders slumped, face empty.

Hotch cleared his throat. “There’s something I need you to know.” 

Tony shook his head. “Just get out, Hotch.” He waited and when Hotch did not move, he added, “You know, I really loved working at the BAU. I really did.”

Hotch said softly, “I know. You must know that you can come back.”

Tony snorted. “Right.” He met his eyes for the first time. “I can’t trust you, Hotch. Not ever again.”

“You can trust me to do what must be done, Tony.”

“The funny thing is that if you had given me time to think about it I might have volunteered. But you and Gibbs had to play your little mind game. I can’t forgive that.”

Hotch said, “No.”

Tony looked up. “No? No what?”

“Gibbs wasn’t in on the plan. He agreed to try to talk you into it, that’s all. We had to fight him to get that. We used him as much as we used you.” He sighed. “We never had any intention of putting that slug on him. His chances of surviving it were pretty slim. He’s fit but he is also well into his 40s. We couldn’t take the risk. But you need to know that when he sat down in that chair, he thought he was going to do it, and he knew damned well he probably wouldn’t have survived it. He didn’t know it was a trick to force you into doing it. He’s a goddamned hero, Tony. And so are you.” 

Tony started laughing and didn’t stop. McKnight came in and kicked him out after a couple of minutes. His bag was just outside the door. He picked it up and went home. The organization of the new strike teams was in progress, but they wouldn’t be ready for at least two weeks. He was going to go see for himself that Jack was safe. Make sure he stayed that way.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“So you’ve had a few days to recover physically. Now it’s time to work on the rest. Tell me what happened.”

“Do you have to keep drugging me?” Tony pulled fretfully at the IV that ran into his arm, but the broad plastic cover over the IV port prevented any attempt to move it.

“Yes. I do. This is how I work, Tony.”

He gave her a sullen look. “What are you giving me now?

She smiled at him. “Do you know that’s the first time you’ve asked me that?”

Tony scowled. “So what?”

“So that is always a good sign. It means your awareness is beginning expand.”

“My awareness?”

“Tony, people who are badly traumatized often close in. They are mostly only aware of their trauma, their fear, their anger. Do you remember me telling you how important it is to avoid dwelling on memories of what happened?

Tony nodded. “You said it would help create… some kind of pathways to make the memories more real, and make the emotions associated with them stronger. Since the last thing we want is to make those memories and the emotions stronger I should do everything I can to not think about it.”

She nodded, “Quite a bit of what I was doing with you the first few days was helping you be able to tell the interrogators what you knew without doing any more damage. It was a fine line, let me tell you. But it seems to have worked.”

“By keeping me stoned to the gills.”

She grinned, “Well, sort of. A very specific kind of stoned.”

There was something about her, Tony thought. She never gave the impression she didn’t care, but she didn’t let you wallow. Rage, fear, wild anger, hysterical crying, all of it was treated as if it were a perfectly normal and understandable reaction. If you could dredge up even a little humor, no matter out dark, she was there with you. Trying to withdraw was the only thing she did not tolerate. And now that he thought of it, the need to keep him from thinking too much about his time with a slug on him was why she wouldn’t let him sulk too much. 

He sighed. “So what kind of drugs are you using right now?”

“A mild painkiller. That’s all.” She gave him a significant look. “For now.” After a pause she said, “So what did happen from your point of view?”

“Pretty much every friend I thought I had, every friend still alive, that is, betrayed me. They forced me to do something I would literally have rather died than do. Even fucking Ducky was involved.” 

McKnight, had her chin on one hand, watching him intently. When she said, “Now why on earth would they have done that?” her tone was mildly surprised and very curious. 

He turned from his pacing and just stared at her.

“I’m quite serious, Tony. Why would people who seemed to like you, even love you, be party to such a thing?”

He huffed. “I notice you weren’t there.”

“No.” She sighed. “But if they’d told me what they planned I might have been. Been in the room, I mean. If you had legitimately volunteered. I would never have been party to the little game they played on you and Gibbs. I would have never allowed torture to happen in a room I was in.”

Tony looked at her, eyes hard. “Why ever not, Doctor? They all kept saying it had to be done.”

She shrugged. “The ends don’t justify the means, Tony. Not ever. They could have given you more time, or chosen another sacrifice. They could have kept talking to the slug instead of going with the torture. The truth is that there is an air of panic around here that needs to be resolved. Unless we get very, very lucky and there is some quick easy way to identify them from a distance, they are going to be with us a long time. Maybe even from now on. The Powers That Be need to accept that and start more long-term planning.” She noticed the look on his face. “But I still need you to tell me why they did what they did to you.”

He got up and started pacing in the small room. He muttered, “I didn’t expect you to defend them.”

She said, “Am I defending them?”

He turned and glared at her. “You want me to say that they were doing what they thought was right.”

She snorted. “Of course they were. So what? Good intentions aren’t a magic wand that makes everything you do acceptable. Or forgivable.”

Tony sank into his chair. “What do you want from me, Harry?”

“I want you to think about one question. Don’t answer it now. Just think about it.”

When she met his gaze with her warm brown eyes he sighed and said, “What question?”

“If you were in Hotch’s place, in Reid’s place, in Gibbs’ place, what would you have done? It’s a complex question, so think about.”  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Gibbs was trying to catch his breath, thinking, _I’m getting too old for this_ , when he was suddenly shoved against the brick of the building that lined the west side of the alley they’d caught their idiot lance corporal in. Surprise didn’t keep him from pushing back, but knowing it was McGee did. He looked into a furious face, reminded that Tim was almost as tall as Tony and that significant muscle had developed under the baby fat.

Then Tim unholstered his gun and shoved it sideways, _hard_ , into Gibbs’ chest. “Here,” he snapped. “Quit the fucking around and get it over with.”

It was very hard to look into those furious eyes and see the hurt underneath the anger, to know what it would take to make McGee, of all people, act like this.

“Tim.” 

It was Tyler. Gibbs found himself wondering who was securing their prisoner. 

“No, Mark. I’m tired of this. If he wants to die, he should just go ahead and do it. Right here would be good. Easy to clean the blood off the concrete. We can blame it on that idiot.” He pushed the gun into Gibbs chest again and Gibbs thought about the bruise he was going to have.

“Hey!” their prisoner blurted, indignant. Kate had the lance corporal on his feet. A glance told Gibbs that he was too busy being fascinated by this little scene to put up any more fight. He turned his eyes back to Tim. “I’m not suicidal, McGee.”

McGee shoved him against the wall once more, then backed away, taking his gun with him. “If you aren’t then stop acting like it. What would you have done if I’d pulled that crap. Especially after what you did the day before yesterday. I’m serious, Gibbs. Think about it. What would you have done if I did that?” 

Gibbs sighed, looked at each of his team, shook his head. He looked at his feet for a long time. Then he looked up again and said, “Yeah.”

 

***

  


He knew those footsteps. He just didn’t believe them. _I’m going fucking nuts_ , he thought savagely. Because this was impossible. He stood, watching the legs clad in jeans come down the stairs. When Tony’s face came into view, he backed up, stumbling a little and sat heavily down on the chair.

Tony’s expression was almost blank, but there was a little bit of humor in those green eyes. He said quietly, “I guess you weren’t expecting me.”

Gibbs tried desperately to get himself under control. It wasn’t working. “Tony,” he whispered.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

Gibbs wasn’t sure what happened next. There was a blurred moment, and then he was standing, wrapped in Tony’s arms, his face buried against the side of Tony’s neck, his hands fisting in the back of the t-shirt. He was shaking so hard he wasn’t sure he could stand alone. He heard himself whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” over and over, and Tony was holding him tight with one hand and running the other down his back, making a soft “Shh,” sound.

After a long while they were sitting together up in the kitchen, a beer each, looking at each other. 

Gibbs finally said, “I don’t understand how you can be here.”

Tony shrugged. “I have a good therapist. She’s a specialist in trauma.” He looked Gibbs in the eyes. “She’s very good.”

Gibbs found himself laughing a little. “She’s pretty feisty, I’ll give her that. She nearly took my head off when she saw what we had done to you. And she's barely tall enough to actually reach it.” He shook his head. “I think that was why I could just walk away. I knew you’d be in good hands.”

Tony nodded, sighed. “I’m glad you did, Gibbs. I needed to get my head straight before I saw you again. You and Hotch. And, well, Reid. I went to see them this morning. Did you know Hotch quit the BAU?”

Gibbs shrugged. “I heard.”

Tony said, “I tracked him down. He's working on the task force, running one of the teams. I, uh… I told him that I forgive him. He was pretty upset.”

Gibbs could understand that. He wondered if he would ever forgive the former FBI agent himself.

“Morgan has taken over the BAU. They’ve gotten a few of new people. Reid is only consulting with them. He spends most of his time at the SERC, using his genius to fight slugs.” 

Gibbs nodded. 

“So, I go over to the the Navy Yard and to my surprise I find that Mark Tyler guy sitting at your desk, yelling at a probie instead of you sitting at your desk yelling at the probie. Tim says you quit a week ago.” Gibbs nodded again. “He gave me the impression they all thought that was a good idea. What’s up with you, Gibbs?”

Gibbs was silent a long moment. Then he said, “I couldn’t do it anymore, Tony. McGee, and I think Kate thought I was suicidal, but I wasn’t. I just couldn’t keep my mind on what we were doing. I kept wondering how you were doing. I kept wondering how the war was going. You know, once I declined the offer to join the task force they pretty much shut me out of the loop. So I kept wondering when we would find a slug, if we would recognize it when we did. ” He raised his hands. “I know there can’t be all that many of them any more, but I just… ” 

Tony sighed, “Actually, there are more than we were hoping. Do you remember what Reid told the, uh, the slug that had me?” It was the first time he’d seen any sign of the traumatized Tony that they’d tricked into sacrificing himself. The flicker in his eyes disappeared almost immediately. 

Gibbs got up suddenly and went to look out his kitchen window. “I spend a lot of time trying very hard not to remember that day, Tony.”

Tony nodded, understanding. After a moment, he went on, “Well, here’s the thing. In the ideal situation they can split about twice a week. Of course they don’t often have ideal situations, but even so, Reid estimates that a single slug can produce thousands of offspring in a matter of a few weeks. The fact that most of them are so impulsive and vicious is the only thing in our favor. They can usually be traced within a few hours unless they lie very low.”

“It took us ten days to find you Tony, and that was only because it tried to go for Abby.”

“Yeah, but I know a lot about how to go to ground, Gibbs. Most of their hosts don’t. And thank god for that.” He paused. “Reid says he isn’t sure that they have much intelligence of their own. They use the host’s. We know for sure they use the host’s memories and that means they use the host’s abilities. That’s one of the reasons Reid spends all his time in an ultra secure facility. The last thing the human race needs is someone like Reid working with them.” 

Gibbs frowned. “How are they getting all that information, Tony? It’s only been a month since… Since I left the SERC.” 

Tony looked him in the eyes. “They don’t automatically take the slugs off hosts anymore, Gibbs. They study them.”

Gibbs said, “Jesus.”

Tony got up and started walking around the room. “Most of them say afterwards that it was worth it. I don’t like it. But I understand why.” He turned to Gibbs, met his eyes, and said, “Just like I understand why things happened the way they did with me.” He bit his lower lip, looking out the kitchen window. “When I first woke up after, after that slug died, I would have cheerfully killed every single one of you involved in that interrogation.” He sighed, “Harry helped a lot. I don’t know exactly what she does with her ‘potions and incantations’.” He grinned suddenly. “That’s what she calls it. But whatever it is she does allows you to keep the panic and the anger and the fear under enough control that you can _think_. It’s like doing years of therapy in a matter of a couple of weeks.” 

“I wondered how you could be here, like this, now.”

“She’s kind of a miracle worker. I owe her a lot.”

Gibbs stood. “Looks like I do too. Steaks?”

It was a lot like the old days. Steaks cooked on the open fire of the fireplace, watching the game on Gibbs’ ancient TV. They both enjoyed it. They both knew they needed to talk about things. A lot of things, actually. But they were content for the moment to simply enjoy each other’s company. 

Until the game was interrupted. 

“This is Malcolm McWright with NBC news. We have reports just now that there has been a horrible tragedy in mainland China. It appears that there has been a nuclear accident some four hundred miles northwest of Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu Province. The Chinese Government has admitted that a nuclear bomb was set off by accident in one of their nuclear development areas. The size of the bomb and the number of casualties is not known at this time, but we do know that more than 30 million people live in Gansu Province, even though it is a relatively dry and mountainous region. Part of the Great Wall of China lies within Gansu Province, but the Chinese Government says that this great landmark was not affected. We will be cutting into the game as we learn more, but for now, we will return you to—”  


Gibbs turned off the TV. They sat staring at the blank screen. Finally, Tony said, “Shit.”

Suddenly, he was on his feet, rage boiling out of his body language as he paced the room. 

“Tony.”

“Those mother fuckers. Those stupid heartless mother fuckers.”

“Tony.”

“Don’t you get it, Gibbs? They nuked the place where the slugs landed.” He laughed suddenly, “ ‘Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.’ Oh, god damn it, Gibbs. We have a fucking vaccine. It’s in testing, but it fucking works. And either our government didn’t bother to mention it or the Chinese Government decided not to wait.”

Gibbs let him rage a while longer. Finally, Tony sank onto the couch. He repeated, “We have a vaccine. It turned out to be easy. They damned near chopped Garcia up into 3 cm cubes, but they found out what about her killed the slug that tried to take her. It has something to do with the way she metabolizes some proteins. It’s just what Reid called a normal variation. He says only about two percent of white people are like Garcia. Blacks have a slightly higher percentage and Asians slightly lower. I don’t even begin to understand, but they figured it out and and found a way to get your body to produce some of the same stuff. It’s not really a vaccine, but it acts like one and the PR campaign to tell everyone about the ‘virus’ “ He made finger quotes. “That causes irrational behavior, is very contagious, and leaves a rash on the back was supposed to start next week. Then we were going to ‘invent’ a vaccine for it and get everyone vaccinated here in the US and then spread out to the rest of the world.” He looked at Gibbs, his eyes full of sorrow. “They just needed a little more time to make sure it wasn’t bad for too many people and then they were going to start making it. They didn’t have to kill all those people.”

 

***

  


Eventually the beer got to Tony and Gibbs sent him upstairs because he had been renovating the downstairs bathroom. As Tony closed the door, he thought he heard someone knocking at the front door, but everything was quiet when he started down the stairs. Gibbs wasn’t on the couch, and he called for him.

There was a rustle in the entry hall and Tony started for it. As he turned the corner, he saw Gibbs was down. McGee was crouched over him.

“What the hell? What happened?”

Tim looked up, his face pale and curiously blank. “I think he’s having a heart attack, Tony.”

A wave of fear hit Tony. Of course, he thought. We finally have a chance to fix things and…” Did you call 911?”

Two things happened next. He knelt next to Gibbs and saw a lump forming on the side of his head. And then something hit him in the head. He didn’t even feel it when he hit the floor.

 

***

  


His head hurt. Okay, not fun. His wrists hurt too. Damn he was tired of his wrists hurting…

 

***

  


The next time he woke up he was actually able to understand where he was. Lying in the back seat of a car, it seemed. His head hurt, and it was an entirely too familiar kind of hurt, that feeling that his _head_ was nauseous as well as his stomach. Ducky’s lectures about recurrent concussions wafted through his memories. His hands were cuffed behind him. 

He sort of floated for a while. Then his memory came back and he looked up to the front seat and saw the silver hair of his former boss. The man was leaning forward slightly, and Tony could see the slug on his neck. He took a moment to mourn for Tim, because he knew that it was likely that the slug had killed him as it transferred to Gibbs. They almost always did unless they were in a big hurry or had been hit with a big electric shock. 

Tony was bizarrely calm. He checked his situation first. His ankles were not tied and he had no seat belt on. There was some hope. Not all that much, but some.

“You awake yet, Tony?”

The tone Gibbs used hurt. It was Gibbs being silly, having fun. That didn’t happen often and certainly hadn’t happened after the explosion that had sent Gibbs off to his trip to Mexico. It brought Tony back to the day they’d all showered together because he had just gotten a face full of powder they were all pretty sure was bad. Gibbs had been downright playful. He had realized later that Gibbs was just distracting him with all the talk about the honey dust. God knew he’d needed the distraction.

“Yeah, Boss.” He worked himself into a sitting position. It took a while and it took a while longer to get his stomach to settle back down.

“Sorry about the head,” Gibbs said when Tony’s face appeared in the rear view mirror. “I didn’t figure you would be very accommodating and had to act fast.” 

Tony was looking around. They were driving along a country highway in the early morning light at what looked like the speed limit. The countryside looked like southern Virginia, maybe even North Carolina. There were few other cars on the road. It was raining lightly, but it looked like there were darker clouds ahead.

He took a deep breath and said, “So what are we up to, Boss?”

Gibbs looked at him in the mirror again and grinned at him. “Well, it seems I’m a lucky guy. I was just trolling for a new host, because mine was pretty sick, and who should stop to help a poor old man lying on the sidewalk but one Timothy McGee, federal agent with the Major Case Response Team of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.” The way he was rolling off the names instead of the acronyms made Tony grit his teeth to keep the anger off his face. _Oh, Tim. I am so sorry._

“And since young Timothy had only been peripherally involved with the fight against the evil slugs, but he knew someone who had been much more involved, I decided we’d go over and see what we could do about that.” The blue eyes locked with his again. “And then there you were and it just seemed perfect.” 

“What are your plans?”

Gibbs came to a stop at an intersection and Tony thought about maybe getting out. But he couldn’t leave Gibbs. 

It seemed that GIbbs had anticipated his thoughts. He lifted his hand with his Sig in it and said, “Oh, by the way. If you try to start any communications with anybody, I’ll just shoot them in the head, so you probably don’t want to do that.”

Tony sat back more comfortably. He had a plan. It was going to get them both killed. But he knew, he knew that Gibbs would rather be dead. He also knew that he himself would far rather be dead than to feel that cool slick tongue-like thing touch his neck again. 

So he sat back, waiting. The car they were in was not his or Gibbs. He supposed it might be Tim’s but he didn’t think this slug would be that stupid. Not with Gibbs’ memories to play around with. They worked their way through a small town, and the car began to pick up speed again.

So he said again, “What are your plans?” 

“Well in a couple of more towns I am going to rent us a motel room in some out of the way place.” He was grinning into the rear view mirror, a sort of gleeful and sort of slimy expression that would have told Tony, even without the slug he could see, that this was not Gibbs talking to him. “And we are going to take it easy while I do my splitting thing. Then you and I are heading for Mexico to start, but I think probably a good bit further south eventually. You see, I think we need to learn to work together a little better than we usually do. Gibbs has some ideas in his head about that. And about how to survive on the run, and what he calls guerilla warfare. Sounds like fun. You and I, Tony. We’re going to be—”

Tony had kept his face as calm as he could, pretending to be interested, while he worked his legs up. The tendency to lean forward a little while driving that slug-ridden people had made it just possible… He swung his legs up, using them for leverage on the back of the front seat, letting his head slip down to the seat again, arching, extending their reach. Before Gibbs could figure out what he was doing he slammed both heels as hard as he could into the soft slug that was riding the man he had loved for so long.

Gibbs screamed. Tony couldn’t see him any more, but it didn’t matter. The car slewed across the highway, hit some dip in the side of the road and flipped up into the air. Tony lost consciousness when it landed. He didn’t even feel it as the car started to roll.

 

***

  


He heard sirens. There were voices. Something very hot was running down his face. Something very cold was dripping on his face too. 

“You all just stand back. Let the fire department deal with this.” The voice had a soft drawl. It added in a much quieter tone, “I don’t think they’re going to make it anyway.”

Tony heard someone groan. He decided it was him and stopped. At last he got his eyes open. He heard someone telling him to lay still, that the paramedics would be there soon.

The car lay on its side and both he and Gibbs were crumpled into what had been the passenger side. Gibbs had a big gash on his chest near his neck. His upper lip and nose were both bleeding. Actively bleeding. He was alive. Tony tried to take a deep breath so he could speak, but the knife-sharp pain of broken ribs put a stop to that. He could only whisper.

“Gibbs?”

Gibbs’ eyelids flickered but did not open.

“Gibbs!” 

No response this time. 

“God damn it, Gibbs. Don’t you die on me. You do not have permission to die. Do you hear me?”

He was smiling. He was goddamned smiling. “ ‘ony.”

Tony tried to take another deep breath in relief, forgetting about the ribs and was immediately reminded of them. It took him a couple of minutes to get control of the pain. His hands were still cuffed and he was pretty sure that his right arm was broken and he couldn’t feel his left arm at all. That should have worried him, he knew, but he was concentrating on the fact that he wanted to touch, to feel for himself that Gibbs was still breathing, that his heart was still beating and he couldn’t move at all.

Gibbs eyes flickered open. God, he’d always loved those eyes. Even when they were angry and trying to roast his face off from across the bullpen. Gibbs lips parted a little and he looked Tony in the eye and said, “Thank you. For freeing me. I love you…” and then his eyes closed and he went limp. 

Tony screamed, “Gibbs! Jethro! Don’t do this to me. Come on, Jethro. Please.” He kept calling, but Gibbs never responded.

Then the rescuers started trying to pull them out of the car, and he lost consciousness again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Part 6: Resolution**  
_Resolution: 1) the subsidence of a pathologic state; 2) the state of having made a firm determination or decision on a course of action.  
_

 

**Monday November 5, 2007**

 

There was a month-old Time Magazine on one of the tables in the cafeteria. Tony picked it up, looking at the garish cover, with the words: “The Ashford Virus. How to recognize the symptoms, what to do about it when you do.” A smaller headline said: “Science fights the Ashford virus. What they are doing to wipe out this plague?”

He thought about reading the article but he knew it was about 80 percent bullshit. He still wasn’t sure that to do it this way was the best idea. He knew of at least 120 survivors, and some day one of them was going to spill the beans. Of course the description of the “virus” included symptoms like hallucinations, and “dream-like states” and that helped destroy the credibility of anyone talking about alien slugs. 

He dropped the magazine, picked up his coffee and walked to the back end of the big room, where temporary screens had sectioned off an area. Within the closed off space there were 27 people, all sitting at tables with hot drinks of some kind. The room was almost completely silent.

Tony went up to the table that had been placed in front of the others and hitched himself up onto it a little clumsily, the cast on his right arm knocking against the table. He muttered a curse and then looked up at the group he was facing. Twenty-seven of them. 

He swallowed the sudden nervousness and said, “I’m Tony DiNozzo. Dr. McKnight asked me to get things started today. We had three new survivors come in last night and she likes to supervise her trainees when they are working with newly freed people.” 

He stopped and looked around the room. “I’m not a therapist. I’ve never been in a support group before, so I don’t know how these things are supposed to go. Dr. Harry can get this started the right way when she gets through with her other duties. For now, I think maybe we should just talk a little. We’ve all been hurt. We know what it was like to watch our bodies do things we didn’t want to do.” He hesitated. “Most of us have lost people. People we loved, friends. Maybe just knowing that others have some of the same problems we have in getting back to our lives will help. That’s the idea, I guess.”

There was an awkward silence. Then a man stood. “I don’t know what I am doing here. I don’t believe in this mumbo jumbo. I just want to get on with my life. I don’t want to talk about what happened to me. I want to forget it. What good will talking do?”

Tony saw several heads nodding, but several others shook their heads and Tony met eyes with one of them. “Does anyone want to answer that question?” 

It wasn’t exactly an interrogation, but the trick still worked. The woman he’d been looking at stood. She had the painfully slender look that a lot of people had after they were freed. “I know it seems pointless. Just talking. But I want to do that. Not talking about what happened to me. I will spend the rest of my life trying to forget that. I need to talk about what it has been like since I was freed. Walking around out there,” She jerked her chin in a strangely eloquent gesture indicating the world outside. “They don’t know. They can’t understand.” When someone else started to speak, she added, “And I don’t want them to. But I need to be able to talk with someone about how much that hurts.”

She sat down, looking a little wrecked. Tony said, “Yeah. I know what you mean. Perfectly ordinary questions from friends can leave you standing there with your mouth open, because you can’t tell them what you’ve been up to and even if you could, they wouldn’t understand.”

Several others started to speak, but a voice near the back said, “You were the first one to survive having a slug taken off.”

Tony couldn’t quite prevent the flinch that statement engendered. “No. I wasn’t. The first one to survive a slug was Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi who was one of the first responders in Ashford. He was a close friend.” He looked out at the group. “And maybe that is the answer to the question, why are we here.” He took a deep breath. “The first person freed from a slug committed suicide because he could not deal with what his body had been forced to do. I know that most, maybe all, of you can understand that. I sure as hell can. But if he’d had the kind of support I had, the kind you all have had, he’d be here now, probably running this thing.” He hesitated. “I still get down sometimes. Down low enough to think maybe he had the right idea.” He looked up at the group. “But I sort of swore an oath to myself that I would honor our friendship and him by not letting it beat me.”

 

***

  


Harry had told him the importance of insisting that the session end on time. “Get them up and chase them out,” she’d said. He was glad of an excuse not to linger and talk more. 

The whole experience had been gut wrenching and exhausting. Listening to others as they struggled to express what living with what had happened to them was like had brought up emotions he had thought he’d already worked through. He was glad to get out of there, but he thought maybe he should go to the next session too.

He had gotten two coffees in a drink carrier and now walked out into the front corridor. He passed men and women in military and police uniforms, as well as civilians. People had been pulled in from a large number of scientific, medical, military and law enforcement organizations. In this building, headquarters for the task force, there was no virus. The psychops people who had devised and implemented the whole Ashford virus thing were housed in a different building. Here there were only those working to find and kill the slugs. 

The corridor was long, with widely spaced security-locked doors that led to different sections. Tony thought of this corridor as the Hall of Doors. Several doors led to the bullpens where the task force strike teams worked on locating evidence of slugs before going out to kill or capture them. Another door led to the space where the victims who had recently survived removal underwent the medical and psychological care they needed to rejoin the world outside as a more or less functional human being. He knew some of them weren’t making much progress toward that goal. Harry had told him there were plans for permanent facilities to house them if they could not regain that functionality. 

There were a few labs for researchers, though most of that work was still going on at the SERC and would continue there. All the live slugs went to a sealed off part of the SERC, kept completely separate from the rest of the facility, where security was even tighter than the rest of the SERC and where everyone went naked to ensure a slug could not get out. The slugs were kept on their hosts only a few extra days for study before they were removed and killed, but no one wanted a slug to get loose once captured. 

He was headed to the Medical section now. He thumped along on his walking cast absently wishing he had another arm. There was an itch near the top of the cast on his right arm but unless he stopped and put down the drink carrier, he had no way to scratch it. 

He was healing but he had a way to go before he was going to be cleared for the field again. He was going slowly stir crazy. He wanted out in the field. He wanted to be out there killing slugs. 

He got to the door to Medical and waved his drink carrier at the camera set over the door. To his immense satisfaction, the door was opened almost at once by one of the Marines on security duty. Not only did it mean he didn’t have to put his drinks on the floor to fish out his card, it also meant the camera was being monitored properly. He grinned at the PFC and thanked her. Then he cocked his head, listening.

“Uh oh,” he said.

The PFC nodded enthusiastically. “I think you are just in time to save us, sir.”

From a room a few doors down he heard. “Somebody better get me some goddamned clothes or I am going out there like I am.”

Tony grinned at the PFC who was trying to maintain a professional attitude, with limited success. He said, “Not much of a threat, is it?” 

She said staunchly, “Wouldn’t know, sir.”

Tony laughed and continued down the hall. At the door where all the noise was coming from he walked in and stopped to grin.

A broken ankle on one leg and a broken thigh on the other did not lend themselves to mobility. Though most of the other injuries were well on the way to being healed Jethro Gibbs was still bed and wheelchair-bound and he didn’t like it one bit. He made sure that everyone within earshot knew it. 

He was trying to get into his wheelchair now, wearing nothing but a hospital gown that was barely hooked over his shoulders and completely open at the back, He stopped and glared at Tony when he saw him. 

Tony made sure that he kept his eyes on the wonderful ass on display and not on the still bruised-looking patch of skin at the top of the older man’s back. “Nice view there, Jethro.”

“Do you have my clothes?”

Tony went to a cabinet and pulled out a t-shirt and a pair of over-large sweatpants that had had one leg cut off at the hip. He tossed the t-shirt to Gibbs and helped him get into the sweatpants. Then he got him into the wheelchair and handed him his coffee. He ignored the growled, “About damned time.” Gibbs drank the first cup in what looked like one long swallow and Tony handed him the other cup.

As they passed the PFC, she looked at them with some concern. “Sir, do you need help?” She seemed to doubt that a guy in a walking cast on one leg and one of his arms in a cast could push a guy with two broken legs down the hall. 

“We can manage, PFC.” He pointed out that Jethro was pushing the wheel on the side opposite where he was pushing with one hand. “We work as a team.”

She said, “Yes, sir.” 

Once out in the corridor, Jethro said, “I want to get out in the fresh air.”

Tony laughed. “Oh, it’s fresh alright. We’re having a bit of an early winter this year. It’s cold as hell out there.”

Gibbs grumbled and sipped his coffee. Tony came around and leaned over him. He whispered, “We don’t have to go outside to kiss, you know, Jethro.” And proved it by giving him a warm and not terribly chaste kiss. They both sighed. It was going to be a while before they could do much more than kiss. 

As they went down the long corridor of doors Jethro said something about how the whole goddamned universe was cockblocking him. Tony had chuckled at that, but the truth was that he thought being forced to go so slow, to actually talk to each other, was going to end up being a good thing. Their relationship had failed in the past because of a number of factors. They each were bringing significant baggage to the party. Both had been badly hurt in past relationships. Gibbs was a bastard and Tony was an idiot. But the big problem was their failure to communicate. They both acknowledged this, though Gibbs had threatened violence if Tony didn’t stop using Strother Martin’s voice from _Cool Hand Luke_ to say so. Communication was a learned skill, Harry said, and they needed time to learn it.

Tony continued down the corridor, moving slowly. Their coordination at this was getting better, but they still weren’t ready for the races. 

They moved down to the area where the offices for the planners and for those who implemented those plans were located. Tony had gotten out of the hospital a couple of weeks ago and had found the whole organization that had been largely a set of ideas when the wreck happened was now up and running with a surprising amount of efficiency. People could do amazing things if properly motivated.

Reminders of the motivation were hung on the wall of the corridor. He and Jethro always moved slowly along this section, looking at the pictures. Some were formal portraits, some were snapshots. There were a few empty frames with only a name attached. They’d started the photos with the the people from Ashford, the Rileys, the Carlsons, the Andersons and the others and then added the FBI and NCIS agents who had been lost. Eventually they added everyone who had been murdered by the slugs. The couple from Harrisonburg was there, Tom and Sara Jones. Tony looked at their picture each time. He did not apologize, even in his head, because he had not killed them. It had taken a while to really believe that, but now he could look at them and mourn them like any of the other victims, but no more than the others. 

Prentiss’ photo was there too. Ziva’s was next to to it. He looked at each, remembering how wonderful each of them had been in their very different ways, regretting the loss of them.

He stopped at Dave Rossi’s picture, seeing the smile that was just the right side of a smirk, remembering how the man had helped him, remembering their times in the kitchen, snarking back and forth at each other, and remembering the fear and guilt he’d seen in the man’s eyes in that moment the slug had let him go. He thought, _It wasn’t your fault, old man. None of it, not Prentiss, not Ziva, not me. And anyway, I’m going to be okay. So, don’t worry about it. Rest in peace._

A little further down the hall was Tim McGee’s photo. Tony stopped and looked and thought, _That goes for you, McProbie. Not your fault. I know you did the best you could. You always did._

Harry had told him that he would eventually come to terms with these losses. He had not thought it possible, but as he stood there, staring at McGee’s shy smile in the photo, remembering him, he was beginning to think she might be right. Some day. 

Not yet, though. 

Not until every one of the slugs was dead.

 

 

The end

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all my reader, especially for all the comments and kudos. I won’t say that writing this was fun, but it was very satisfying to see an idea I had more than a year ago come to fruition. And I especially want to thank Deejaymil, who is a wonderful writer and has done a wonderful job betaing this project for me. Seriously.[Go check her out.](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil)


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